- 




. Copyright, taoe, by James Pott # Oo. New For*. 



THE STORY 

ST. PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS 



BY 

J. PATERSON SMYTH 

B.D., LL.D., Litt.D.^D.C.L. 

Late Professor of Pastoral Theology, University of Dublin; 

Author of ' ' The Gospel of the Hereafter, " " The Bible 

in the Making," "How We Got Our Bible" etc. 



NEW YORK 

JAMES POTT & CO. 

1917 







€ 






Copyright, 19 1 7 

BY 

JAMES POTT & CO. 



APR 13 1917 



PRES6 OP 

BRAUNWORTH &. CO. 

BOOK MANUFACTURERS 

BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



9t»W, 



/ 



y 6 




PREFATORY NOTE 



During several years past, for some months each 
year, I have treated my Sunday morning congregation 
as a great Bible-class, taking them straight through 
the whole Bible in broad outline. This book is the 
substance of one of these lecture-series, which accounts 
for a few phrases and peculiarities of diction not easily 
eliminated. 

J. p. s. 

St. George's, Montreal, 
Easter, 1917. 



CONTENTS 



PART I 



INTRODUCTORY 

CHAPTER PAGB 

I. How to Study St. Paul i 

II. The Greek, the Roman, and the Jew 8 

PART II 
YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 

III. The Thoughts of Youth are Long, Long Thoughts 15 

IV. The Crisis of Conversion 28 

V. Saul of Tarsus Finds His Life Work 40 

PART III 
THE MASTER BUILDER 

VI. The Fight for Freedom 53 

VII. Second Missionary Tour 67 

VIII. How the Gospel Came to Europe 78 

IX. In Athens 88 

X. The New Testament in the Making 102 

XL Diana of the Ephesians 115 

XII. The Care of All the Churches 129 

XIII. Faith and Works 134 

XIV. The Works of the Law in the Twentieth Cen- 

tury 14 1 

vii 



viii CONTENTS 



PART IV 
TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XV. Going up to Jerusalem 151 

XVI. Riot and Arrest 159 

XVII. Four Cesarean Pictures 169 

XVIII. The Shipwreck 183 

XIX. In Chains 191 

XX. Letters from Rome 199 

XXI. Letters from Rome — Continued , 206 

XXII. The Passing of Paul 213 



PART I 
INTRODUCTORY 



THE STORY OF 
ST. PAUL'S LIFE AND LETTERS 



PART I 
INTRODUCTORY 



CHAPTER I 
How to Study St. Paul 

One sometimes wonders why we should have in 
the Bible so much more of the Life and Letters of the 
one apostle whom Christ appointed after His Ascen- 
sion than of the others whom He appointed in His 
earthly life. But we have no doubt that if only one 
was to be given that one should be St. Paul. For no 
one of the others, not St. Peter, not even St. John, 
counted for so much in the beginnings of the Christ 
tian Church. 

It is almost impossible to overstate what Paul meant 
to Christianity. The simple, affectionate peasant men 
of Galilee could tell with convincing power, as no 
others could, of the wonderful three years when they 
walked 'with Jesus over the fields of Palestine, how they 
learned to love Him as no man was ever loved before, 



2 INTRODUCTORY 

how they saw Him dead, how He came back to them 
alive, how their deep affection rose into wonder and 
awe and adoration as they realized who He was who 
was their Comrade and Friend. As one of themselves 
puts it long afterward 1 " We declare to you that which 
we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, 
that which we beheld and our hands handled concerning 
the Word of Life. The Word became flesh and taber- 
nacled among us and we beheld His glory, the glory 
as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace 
and truth." No one else could do what they did. 
The simple story, the deep conviction, the personal 
touch were irresistible. 

But the Church had to go out into the pagan 
world and down into the coming centuries, to meet 
cold indifference and clever scepticism and fierce op- 
position and controversies too keen for " unlearned 
and ignorant men." Was that why the Lord of the 
Church intervened, who had promised to be with it 
always to the end of the world ? He called to Him 
a man, gave him personal touch with Himself, con- 
vinced him. beyond all gainsaying, won his passionate, 
adoring gratitude and love — a man who was a genius, 
a scholar, a thinker and intellectual leader of men and, 
above all, a man who in his utter devotion all his life 
after delights to call himself " the bond-slave of Jesus 
Christ." That is the marvellous thing in the story of 
Paul who had never seen Jesus in the flesh and who 
was so obstinately unbelieving — the utter trust, the 
complete surrender, the close, reverent, personal love 
which the Lord won from him in that mysterious hour 
on the road to Damascus. 

1 Johni:i;" John 1:14. 



HOW TO STUDY ST. PAUL 3 

ii 

We are to study his life-story. It is not easy, for 
the beginning and the end of the story are cut off. We 
have only the record of his middle life from the day 
when in his mature manhood St. Luke met him and 
began putting him into his diary to the day, thirty 
years later, when the diarist dropped his pen, probably 
stricken from him by the hand of death. We have no 
record of his youth, no record of his old age, nor of 
the end. Though in another sense than his Lord he 
seems to come to us like Melchisedek "without father 
or mother or genealogy, without beginning of days or 
end of life.'V" 

And even that imperfect story is full of gaps. The 
biographer was not always present. There were many 
things that he did not know. Take for example this 
one sentence out of one of Paul's letters l : "Of the 
Jews five times received I forty stripes save one; thrice 
was I beaten with rods; once was I stoned; thrice I 
suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in 
the deep; in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in 
perils among false brethren, in hunger and thirst, in 
fastings, in cold, in nakedness." 

Not one of the five scourgings finds place in the 
history; not one of the three shipwrecks, though a 
later one is described fully. No word of that terrible 
night and a day clinging probably to a raft in the wide 
Mediterranean. Think of all the romantic interest of 
the robber attacks in the mountains; of the rivers 
suddenly rising in flood to sweep away the boats. What 
an interesting life of Paul we should have if we knew 
it all! 

1 2 Cor. xi: 24. 



INTRODUCTORY 



in 

Happily, we are not quite left to St. Luke's diary. 
There are thirteen of St. Paul's letters bound up in 
the New Testament. Some others seem to have been 
lost, and unfortunately, we have so badly arranged 
those thirteen as to spoil their value in some degree 
to the general reader. There is no attempt at chrono- 
logical order, no attempt it would seem at any order 
except that of placing them according to length, which 
not only confuses the sequence of facts mentioned in 
them but also obscures the gradual development of the 
writer's thought and teaching. We have known all 
this for a long time but we are too conservative to alter 
it. Let us hope that some Bible publisher will some 
day put it right. In this book I have attempted to 
place the letters in their order and as far as possible 
to put each in its right setting. 

These letters illumine the whole story. They not 
only gives us additional facts, but they do much 
towards giving us the man himself. For they are real 
letters, not formal treatises or sermons (except per- 
haps the Epistle to the Romans). Genuine letters to 
living men whom he knew and cared for, giving im- 
mediate answers to pressing questions and warnings 
and exhortations bearing on the everyday life of people 
with whom he was intimate — easy, natural letters like 
our own giving the personal touch, the impetuous 
temper, the affectionate nature of the man. 

Indeed for our purpose they are rather better than 
our own letters, for they are dictated and so come 
straight from his heart. Busy men then as now dic- 
tated their letters, and perhaps Paul's eyesight made 



HOW TO STUDY ST. PAUL 5 

it more necessary. So we read: e.g., "I, Tertius, who 
write this epistle salute you." Then at the close Paul 
scrawls in his ending: "I, Paul, salute you with mine 
own hand, which is my token in every epistle." 

The man just talked as he walked the room, or sat 
on the floor working with the tent-cloth on his knees. 
You can hear him talk, you can see him impetuously 
break off in the middle of a sentence as a new thought 
strikes him. It puzzles commentators, but it gives 
you the living Paul. 

IV 

It is well worth while for any Bible reader to give 
several months of his Bible-reading time to the careful 
deliberate study of St. Paul. Let him take a month, 
if necessary, to one epistle. One book thoroughly 
studied is worth a dozen superficially read, and each 
book so studied will whet the desire and strengthen 
the habit of studying other portions with similar care. 1 

Perhaps the reading of this present little volume 
may help as a preliminary to such study. For further 
help I offer a few suggestions: 

In reading the history in the Acts of the Apostles 
let imagination play on it, supplying form and colour, 
living in the scene, making pictures. It is the main 
secret of pleasurable reading, 'Put yourself in his 
place,' not merely in picturing the outward scene but 
also, in so far as may be, entering into the mind of 
the speakers and actors. Anyone can do it and it is 

1 There is much to be said in favour of steady, systematic reading 
according to a calendar by which the portion for each day is definitely 
fixed. Yet as a rule one can seldom do very thorough study by that way 
alone. Perhaps for some readers it would be well to combine it with the 
method here recommended — to read, say, in the morning according to the 
calendar, and at night to aim at the slower and more thorough study of 
certain special books as suggested above. , -- 



6 INTRODUCTORY 

worth the effort. True, a more vivid imagination will 
give one an advantage over another, but all that is 
really needful is some little knowledge of the circum- 
stances and surroundings and the effort to think one- 
self into them. 

To do this you must bring in the Epistles. You 
want to feel his mind, you want to read his letters, 
if you would know Paul. It is in letters to his friends 
that a man shews his heart. 

When you have got the right setting for it, first 
read your Epistle rapidly straight through two or three 
times to get your grip of it as a whole. Then go 
over it in detail with a simple commentary (e.g., The 
Cambridge Bible for Schools). Try to put yourself 
into the place of the writer and the readers. Do not 
read it as if addressed to you. He had no thought of 
you. He did not write for publication. He never 
imagined in his wildest dreams that he was writing 
scriptures for the Church for all the ages. True, the 
Holy Spirit was guiding him, but if you are to under- 
stand the letters of St. Paul you must take them quite 
naturally as letters written like your own, with no 
thought of anyone but the persons you are writing to. 

Read the letters naturally. Get in sympathy with 
the writer. Feel with him in his rejoicing, in his 
despondency, in his exultant fighting moods, in his 
keen irony, in his sensitiveness when people have hurt 
him by ugly insinuations. Feel with him in his affec- 
tionate greetings, "God is my witness, how I long after 
you all," in his impetuous temper, where he is vexed 
with these "fools of Galatians," in his love for his fellow 
countrymen, "I would be willing to be accursed from 
Christ for the sake of my brethren." 



HOW TO STUDY ST. PAUL 7 

Watch the little personal touches. He sends his 
love to Rufus and his mother, "who is also a mother 
to me," and you see the gratitude of a lonely man to a 
dear, kindly old lady who had mothered him. Watch 
him in Rome chained to a soldier as he writes the 
familiar ending to his epistle, "I, Paul, salute you with 
my own hand. Remember my chains." You can hear 
the fetters clanking as he tries to write. Or read that 
exquisite little note to Philemon, whose young slave 
had robbed him and run off to Rome to have a good 
time. Paul seems to have met the scamp and won him 
to religion and grown to love him dearly. Now he 
is sending him back with this note in his pocket. "Re- 
ceive him," he says, "he is my child Onesimus whom 
I have begotten in my bonds. I will repay that 
money. I might have demanded this favour of thee, 
for thou owest me thine own soul. But for love sake 
I only entreat it as Paul the aged prisoner of Jesus 
Christ." 

I have been thinking chiefly here of the human 
side, of the human interest in the Bible, for the ignoring 
of it by religious people has tended much to make 
Bible reading uninteresting and unreal. Is it necessary 
here to remind any reader that the more he habituates 
himself to read his Bible naturally and sympathetically, 
recognizing fully the human side of it, the more neces- 
sary it is to remember with reverence and awe that God 
is, in the truest sense, its author; the more he enjoys 
the personality of the writers, the more needful to keep 
in mind that the writings "came not by the will of 
man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved 
by the Holy Ghost"? 



CHAPTER II 
The Greek, the Roman and the Jew- 
Fully to understand Paul's life we need to under- 
stand Paul's world. We turn to secular history for 
the picture of his environment- — the people amongst 
whom he moved. It helps us to appreciate his eager- 
ness and the need and heart hunger of that lonely 
world. 

Paul's world was the Roman Empire. Here are 
three great varieties of national life. The Greek, and 
the Roman, and the Jew divide the world between 
them. When Pilate wrote the inscription on the Cross 
in Hebrew, Greek and Latin it was for them. It ex- 
presses the position as it appeared to Pilate — as it 
appeared to Paul — the three people Hebrew, Greek and 
Roman. We shall afterward see how wonderfully in 
God's providence they were combined to prepare for, 
the coming of the Christ. The Jew with his bible and 
his religion, and his hope of the Messiah. The Greek 
with his flexible language, the universal language of 
civilization, making a vehicle for the gospel message. 
The Roman welding together in the strong framework 
of the empire, the incoherent provinces and peoples 
on which Christianity was to act. 

Keep these people steadily before you. Paul was 
always in the midst of them. Whether in Jerusalem, 
or Corinth, or Athens, or Rome, or in his boyhood 
home in Tarsus — everywhere was the Greek and the 

8 



THE GREEK, ROMAN AND JEW 9 

Roman, and the Jew. It was to them he brought the 
story of the crucified Christ. He knew their need. 

They from their high position looked down with con- 
tempt on him. But he, from his higher position, 
looked down with love and pity on them, for he knew 
that in its inner heart that poor world was tired and 
lonely, and that only Christ could help. 

But we cannot discuss that here. I want you to 
see these people amongst whom Paul lived. I want 
to bring that old world before you. 

II 

There were the Greeks, the proud, eager, restless, 
beautiful Greeks, with their noble art and literature and 
philosophy, and their love of the beautiful, and their 
poetic imagination which peopled Olympus with the 
gods. To this day the whole civilized world looks to 
these ancient Greeks with wonder and gratitude. We 
owe to them the best of our culture. Above all things 
they stood for culture. Never was any nation prouder 
of its culture. Never had any nation better reason 
to be proud. 

But, alas, we are learning in these days what culture 
can come to without religion, and the poor Greeks of 
St. Paul's day were learning what Germany may some 
day learn for her eternal good, that the world cannot 
get on with culture only. I picture these Greeks as 
like the modern Parisians, a light, pleasant, quick- 
witted people, who like to amuse themselves, to enjoy 
themselves. But the enjoyment was a good deal on 
the surface. Down underneath life was a bit pathetic. 
Their best days were over. The golden age of Greece 
was in the past. Their political integrity was lost. 



10 INTRODUCTORY 

They spent their time in frivolity, and worse. Profli- 
gacy and corruption were eating like a cancer, and their 
beautiful religion had no power to check their bad 
propensities. How could it? Even in the best days 
their beautiful gods on Mount Olympus were not very 
moral. You could not imagine anyone offering them 
spiritual prayers. 

But at any rate, their gods were real to them then. 
They had some spiritual vision. They were men. 
Jove was the good-natured father and creator. Their 
gods fought with them at the Pass of Thermopylae, 
where the famous 300 laid down their lives for Greece 
and for right. 

But now they were a hopeless and effeminate race. 
Though they kept up their forms and their images, 
they had utterly lost all real belief. Their mythology 
had become a fairy tale. "Men had climbed up into 
Olympus and found no gods there." And so it was a 
lonely world. The Bishop of Tokyo told me the other 
day that this is the condition of Japan to-day. In 
young, happy days nations and men can get on with 
frivolity and pleasure, and statues and poetry, but there 
are days when these things fail. In our sorrowful 
times we want a god of some kind to turn to. Even 
Jupiters and Junos will be some use provided we be- 
lieve in them. But, alas, if we do not! 

in 

Then there were the Romans. The Roman Empire 
in Paul's day was in no decline like the Greek. The 
Romans were the masters of the world. It was a proud 
boast even of Paul himself to be a Roman citizen — 
a member of the great Roman Empire, with its wise 



THE GREEK, ROMAN AND JEW 11 

laws, its splendid armies, its boundless wealth, its world- 
wide rule. Rome was the very personification of pagan 
power and pride and mastery. That was her imperial 
ambition. For that she kept her unconquerable armies ; 
for that she trampled weaker peoples into the ground. 
The Roman was the German of those ancient days in 
his pride of power and mastery and success. The 
Roman was the superman. His kingdom was utterly 
a kingdom of this world. It was a brave, splendid, 
magnificent world. You cannot help admiring it. 

But read the great historians and you see that 
underneath all the power and magnificence was a sink 
of rottenness. Tourists are shown in Rome to-day the 
splendid marble palaces of the emperors. Paul's em- 
peror, Nero, lived in one of these palaces. He was out- 
wardly a scholar and a polished gentleman. But in 
his marble palace he executed his old mother and kicked 
his wife to death, and in later days covered Christians 
with tar and burned them for torches to light the 
palace grounds. 

Travellers to-day wonder at the Roman amphi- 
theatres, the stupendous relics of national greatness. 
The Coliseum held 30,000 spectators; the Circus Maxi- 
mus held 200,000. But the historians teach us that 
they were built on blood and agony by hosts of wretched 
slaves. That when built they were crowded daily with 
maddened, yelling multitudes of men, women, and even 
children, citizens of Rome, watching the horrible car- 
nivals of blood. Under Trajan 10,000 gladiators were 
used up in a half year. Men fought with lions and 
tigers. Serpents and crocodiles were brought to keep 
up the novelty. Women fought women, dwarfs fought 
dwarfs, blindfolded men fought each other, while the 



12 INTRODUCTORY 

citizens cheered and laid bets on the fight. How could 
they be other than degraded and brutalized. You 
want to realize the position if you are to understand 
the terrible intensity of St. Paul with his gospel of 
Christ. 

Slavery was the blackest curse of the empire. The 
invincible armies brought multitudes of captives from 
all over the world. Strong men, beautiful women, 
many of them refined, educated people, reduced to 
slavery. Two men out of every three who walked the 
streets of Rome were slaves. Aye, and two women out 
of every three, and two girls out of every three. Think 
of it. When every man could do what he liked with 
his slave. Every gust of passion, every suggestion of 
lust, the slaves must bear it. The slaves were wretched. 
The best of them crowded into Christianity for com- 
fort. The worst of them debauched Rome. They 
brought in new, unnatural, abominable vices. They 
corrupted their masters. They corrupted the children. 
Every passion of the golden youth of Rome was min- 
istered to by them. In the purlieus of the bath, and 
the circus, and the stage, the Roman boys learned what 
they should never have known. They grew old and 
jaded, and rotten with indulgence of vice before they 
were out of their teens. A world without God. 

Yet they had gods in multitudes, in every street, in 
every home. If a man wanted money, or success in 
some evil scheme, he hired a priest and invoked the 
gods. But prayer had no moral significance. No man 
would think of unburdening his soul to his gods. 

Then they wanted novelty in their religion. In 
Paul's day they had begun to introduce the oriental 
religions with their shameless impurities, and the wild 



THE GREEK, ROMAN AND JEW 13 

orgies of prostitution in the open temple, in the sight 
of the sun, before the altars of the Goddess of Fruit- 
fulness. Here one dare not do more than hint at these 
abominations. I only hint at them at all that you 
may be helped to realize the awful need of Christ in 
that splendid, successful, godless world. How deeply 
Paul felt it is indicated in his terrible first chapter of 
the Epistle to the Romans, "God gave men up to un- 
uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts." 

IV 

The Greek, the Roman and then the Jew. The 
mysterious, miraculous Jew. You can hardly doubt 
God's hand, and the providential preparation for Christ, 
when you see spread out over the empire the one race 
set apart from of old, with their genius for religion; 
their worship of the one holy God; their complete 
Old Testament as we have it to-day. They were every- 
where. From distant Babylon, the land of Shadrach, 
Mesach and Abednego, to all the coasts around the 
Mediterranean. You remember the list of them that 
came back to the Pentecost — "Parthians and Medes, 
and Elamites, and dwellers in Mesopotamia, in Pontus, 
and Asia, in Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and 
Libya/' etc. Think what it meant in that poor unholy 
world, with its multitude of degrading gods, to have in 
every city the worship of the one God, holy and pure; 
men with the spiritual vision of sin and righteousness; 
men with the inspired Bible in their hands; men with 
the eager outlook for a golden age in the future when 
Messiah should come to bless the people of God. 

True, they were a narrow and bigoted people; true, 
when Messiah came they crucified Him; true, they were 



14 INTRODUCTORY 

the bitter enemies of the Church which set out to 
preach that crucified Messiah. But you can see how 
their presence all over the empire laid a broad foun- 
dation for Christianity to build on. And in one of 
their Jewish homes in the city of Tarsus they were 
rearing up a boy named Saul. 



PART II 
YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 



PART II 
YOUTH AND. PREPARATION TIME 



CHAPTER III 
The Thoughts of Youth are Long Long Thoughts 

Unexpectedly, suddenly, out of the unknown, 
Saul of Tarsus makes his first appearance on the stage 
of history. The curtain rises on a howling Eastern 
mob and stones hurtling through the air and a young 
Jewish rabbi in the background with white robes 
piled at his feet. Amid this crowd of cursing fanatics 
gnashing with their teeth "they stoned Stephen calling 
upon God and the witnesses laid down their clothes 
at a young man's feet whose name was Saul." 

This is our first sight of Saul of Tarsus. He is 
here called a young man, but he is already prominent 
in Jerusalem, so we may set him down as probably 
about thirty years of age. We have no earlier knowl- 
edge of him except from a few hints in his letters 
and speeches, but we can gather something from them. 

I j9 /OL- 

We can go back twenty years. -When the boy Jesus 
was playing in the carpenter's shop, and the boy John, 
his forerunner, was growing up in the hill country of 
Judea, away across the sea in the pagan city of Tarsus 

15 



16 YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 

was another boy who in human sight had no connexion 
with either, but who learned in later years that God 
had destined him from his mother's womb 1 to stand 
beside them both in the eternal purpose of humanity. 

The memories of childhood are the most lasting of 
all. I want you to see " the pictures that hung upon 
memory's wall " when Paul thought of his boyhood. 

Tarsus was a town rather like Montreal in its 
earlier days, a university town and a great central 
mart of trade, especially the lumber trade. You could 
see the barefoot loggers riding on the logs and prizing 
open the jam above the Cydnus Falls. 'It was in a 
fine position for commerce. Behind it through the 
mountains ran the 'Cilician gates,' the traders' 
mountain pass to the lands beyond the Taurus. 
Through the midst of the town the navigable river 
Cydnus ran down to the sea, with its crowded ships, 
and quays, and dockyards. Saul's grandfather saw 
the mountain as a robber's fastness, and the river as a 
shelter for the pirates of the Levant. When Saul's 
father was a boy (b. c. 41), all Tarsus crowded on the 
river's bank to see the gorgeous pageant that day when 
Cleopatra sailed up the Cydnus attired as Venus in her 
golden barge to meet Mark Antony. I am not sure 
whether the banquet was at Tarsus or Alexandria when 
she dissolved her pearls in the wine, but at any rate 
the old Pharisee would not have been invited there. 
So you see Tarsus was not without its romantic stories. 

There I see the boy Saul watching the ships with 
his companions; shouting to the lumbermen floating 
past; climbing on the bales of goods piled along the 
quay; listening to the traders, in their varied costumes 




THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH 17 

and varied dialects, from all parts of the empire. And 
the lad evidently took notice, for long afterwards in 
his letters we find the illustrations of the sealing, and 
the earnest money, and the branding of bales, and the 
hucksterings, and the adulterations of goods. And I 
note that in the providence of God the man who was to 
spend his life in pagan cities was brought up in a pagan 
city. He who was to preach a universal religion for 
all races was brought up, not on the green hills of 
Galilee, but in a crowded centre of trade where all 
races met. 

ii 



He was proud of his native town. "It was no mean 
city," he says. And he was proud of his ancestry. 
The Roman boy might look down on the Jewish boy, 
but the Jewish boy knew he belonged to a race that 
was making history before Rome was born. He be- 
longed to the famous little tribe of Benjamin, and was 
namesake of the famous Benjamite, King Saul. When 
the other Tarsus boys played soldiers in the woods or 
dreamed, as boys do, of old heroic days — of the fight 
at Marathon— of Romulus and Remus — and 

"How Horatius kept the bridge 
In the brave days of old," 

Saul fed his imagination on Abram and Jacob, and the 
brilliant adventures of Joseph in Egypt — on Elijah 
and Saul and David and Daniel and Shadrach, 
Mefehach and Abednego, and the wild days, dear to 
a boyish mind, when Samson was smashing the Phil- 
istines' skulls with an ass's jawbone. That is the sort 
of thing that appeals to a boy. 



18 YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 

And when the other boys learned of Jupiter and 
Juno and Venus, Saul learned of the Almighty, all- 
holy Jehovah, the God of his own people. 



ill 

His father in that business town was probably a 
merchant. He was evidently a man of some position 
(the fact that his son was a tent-maker proves nothing 
against this. Every Jewish boy learned a trade). He 
had won the proud distinction of citizenship of Rome. 
Paul says he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee 
of the Pharisees, of the strictest sect of his religion. 
You can see him walking in his broad phylacteries, strict 
in ritual observances. I think of him as an austere 
man, a righteous man, silent, strict, bigoted, like the 
old Scotch Covenanters. I wonder if he was in St. 
Paul's mind when he wrote "Fathers, provoke not your 
children to wrath." I should not wonder if he did 
not spare the rod on young Saul. I should not wonder 
if young Saul needed the rod, judging from Saul, the 
fierce, passionate persecutor, and even from the Paul 
of later life, though chastened and softened by the 
grace of God. I can well imagine that his father found 
him a passionate, strong-willed boy, not very easy to 
bring up, and I can well believe that in later days, 
heart-broken by that son's apostasy, when he disgraced 
the proud old name, and became a renegade from the 
faith, that that father could choke down his love and 
disown his son, and turn him out penniless to follow 
the sect of the Nazarenes. Perhaps that was why he 
was so poor all his days, and so sensitively proud that 
he would not allow his people to help him. 

We learn that Saul had a sister who was afterwards 



THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH 19 

married in Jerusalem, and some cousins or kinsmen, 
who he says, "were in Christ before me." x I wish we 
knew something of his mother. One always wants to 
know what the mothers of great men were like. He 
never mentions her. Perhaps her husband made her 
cast him off when he disgraced the family. Perhaps 
she died early. Somehow, I always think of him as a 
motherless boy. Perhaps that accounts for the touch- 
ing little reference in the close of one of his letters. 
"Salute Rufus and his mother, who was also a mother 
to me" 2 — that kindly old lady who took his mother's 
place for him. 

IV 

Whether we are right or not in guessing his father 
to be a Tarsus business man, at any rate he seemed to 
have designed his son for the ministry — what the 
Canadian business man does not. I wonder why? 
You are not mere money-seekers. Many of you are 
good Christian people. And with splendid self-sacrifice 
you give your boys to the war. Why do you not give 
your boys a chance of finding their vocations to the 
noblest of all professions — and the happiest. In all 
sincerity I say to you to-day — with all its difficulties, 
and strain and worry — I would not change my office 
for that of a king on his throne. If I had a dozen boys 
I would wish them all as I am. Of course you cannot 
decide for them, but you could give them a chance to 
decide. Does no mother dream the dream for her boy 
of helping the tempted and preaching God's fatherhood 
and consecrating at the altar the bread from heaven 
for the strengthening of human souls. Let us hope in 

1 Rom. xvi:7. 2 Rom. xvi:i3. 



20 YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 

the new, solemn world after the war, when our boys 
come home, we shall have a better story to tell. 



So one day Saul went off to Jerusalem to college. 
A great day to a Hebrew boy when he first sees the holy 
city — the dream city of his people. And a great day 
when he first goes to college, and greater still when, as 
he tells us, the president of the college is the famous 
Rabbi Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, "held in honour 
of all the people." His fame is not confined to the 
Christian New Testament. The Jewish Talmud has 
embalmed his memory. Every educated Jew in our 
city to-day can tell you of Gamaliel's place in history. 
Not only a famous scholar, but a broad, large-minded 
leader of thought. So says the Jewish Talmud. So 
says the Christian New Testament. Take that one 
instance in the Acts of the Apostles, when his bigoted 
fellow priests were persecuting the Christians, "Let 
them alone," said Gamaliel; "if this thing be of men 
it will come to naught, but if it be of God, ye cannot 
overthrow it, lest haply ye be found even to fight 
against God." 1 A broad-minded man. 

One wonders why Christianity did not appeal to 
him. But it did not. There is a legend that it did, 
but I do not believe it. The Jews know nothing of it. 
He lived and died a Jew, and before he died he wrote 
a long liturgical prayer against this new heresy of the 
Nazarenes. 

You can see what an advantage it was to the im- 
petuous Saul to be under the influence of that wise, 
calm leader all his college years. Saul did well in 

1 Acts v:9. 



THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH 21 

college. "I advanced," he says, "beyond many of mv 
age in learning the Jews' religion. " 

The teaching in those days was more interesting 
than the college lectures of our day — more conver- 
sational. The students were accustomed and encour- 
aged to ask questions all through the teaching. Our 
professors require silence in the class-room. The stu- 
dents in Saul's days "sat at the feet of the doctors 
hearing them and asking questions." 

Does not that start in your memory some words of 
St. Luke about the boy Jesus ? Did you ever think of 
Jesus at Gamaliel's lectures. I may be wrong, but I 
cannot help thinking what happened one day in Jeru- 
salem — of a boy twelve years old getting lost for three 
days, while his frightened people searched everywhere 
for him. I think of that lost boy, wandering all over 
the strange city, sleeping where he could at night, 
getting food from some kind woman in the daytime, 
and at last on the third day wandering into Gamaliel's 
class-rooms in the Temple precincts and sitting down 
with the other students. And there the distracted 
mother finds him "in the midst of the doctors, hearing 
them and asking them questions." 1 Is not that what 
you would expect of Jesus? Not a boy pertly exam- 
ining the great rabbis, but a modest pupil learning at 
their feet. 

Of course it is a conjecture, but I think it quite 
probable that one day Jesus sat like Saul at the feet 
of Gamaliel. 

* Luke ii 146. 



M YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 



VI 

Paul says of his studies — "I advanced beyond many 
of my age." What were his studies? The Bible. The 
Bible only. 

Spoiled, no doubt, by stupid rabbinical commentary, 
as it is spoiled to-day by our stupid clerical sermons. 
But you cannot quite spoil the Bible. Saul knew it as 
you know your alphabet. He knew it in Hebrew and 
Septuagint Greek — as we see from his quotations — 
and he knew it by heart. He could not carry bulky 
rolls around with him. His speeches in the Acts con- 
tain quotations and allusions from nearly every Old 
Testament book. In his Epistles are 198 quotations. 
The man's mind was saturated with Scripture. Who 
doubts that it told largely in making him the great 
man he was. No wonder he thought it the world's 
great treasure. "What advantage, then, hath the 
Jew?" he asks. "Chiefly that unto them were com- 
mitted the oracles of God." 

We have that Bible of his, and the New Testament 
with it, but our tables are strewn with light magazines, 
and the newsboy piles up on our doorstep the Gazette, 
and the Star, and the Herald, and the Evening News, 
and some of us have not time for anything higher. I 
do not want to scold about the Bible — I am not so good 
about it myself — but don't you think we might do 
better? If the Scriptures are the power of God unto 
salvation, a storehouse of power from God, might we 
not at least read a chapter before our prayers every 
night. I hope most of us do. If anyone does not, 
will he resolve to begin to-night taking one of the 
gospels to commence with ? 



THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH 23 



VII 

We take a long step forward. Ten years have 
elapsed since Saul of Tarsus bade good-bye to his college 
and his wise old president, when we find him back in 
Jerusalem again. I think of him going to the school 
to greet his old master. In these ten years occurred 
the mission of Jesus and His crucifixion. Jerusalem is 
being deeply agitated by his followers, who claim that 
he is the Messiah; that he is risen from the dead; that 
he is the eternal Son of God. At first they were 
frightened and lay low, but after the first Pentecost, 
and the miracle of the Holy Spirit, they could not 
longer be held down. This glorious thing that they 
knew could no longer be kept to themselves. In the 
very streets of the city which had crucified him, they 
proclaimed "Jesus and the Resurrection. ,, Peter, a 
few weeks after his cowardly denial, flung his chal- 
lenge in the teeth of priest and Pharisee. "Ye killed 
the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer 
to be granted unto you. Ye killed the Prince of Life 
whom God raised from the dead, of which we all are 
witnesses." And the people listened; Jerusalem was 
deeply stirred. 

At this crisis, as I judge, Saul came back to the 
capital. How do I know he had been away? Well, 
I cannot believe he was there during the ministry of 
Jesus, partly because he never hints at having seen 
Him on earth, partly because I judge that a man of 
Saul's type coming in personal contact with the Lord, 
must, perforce, either have persecuted Him or followed 
Him — and he certainly did neither. 

Probably he left college for some country charge 



24 YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 

as many of our students do, and just as the ablest of 
our young country clergy to-day are drawn back into 
the city, so the clever young rabbi soon gravitated 
to Jerusalem. 

He came back with his splendid Jewish gospel that 
"God so loved — the Jew" that he chose him out of all 
the world to bless him, and one day would send the 
anointed Messiah to deliver Israel from the Roman 
power and raise it to a pinnacle of glory and right- 
eousness. A brave, stirring gospel for the Jew. 

But heretics in Jerusalem were teaching the Gospel 
of the Nazarene and, worse still, they were being listened 
to. "The number of the disciples multiplied greatly, 
and a great company of priests were obedient to the 
faith." 

"We are Jews," said these Nazarenes. "We believe 
in the Messiah, but there is no Messiah to look forward 
to now. The Messiah has come already, and you in 
your blind bigotry have crucified Him. But God has 
raised him from the dead. Repent and receive him 
every one of you, and turn to God for forgiveness." 
That was not pleasant hearing for the Pharisees and 
scribes. 

VIII 

The worst of these heretics was Stephen, the deacon. 
He was afraid of no man. He challenged them all. 
They held a great debate one day in which the syna- 
gogue of the Cilicians took part. Paul was of Tarsus 
in Cilicia, and probably was in the debate. He was a 
clever debater, but in Stephen he found an adversary 
worthy of his steel. If Stephen had lived he might 
have been another Paul. Stephen was too strong for 



THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH 25 

them in the debate. "They were not able to resist 
the wisdom and the spirit in which he spake." And 
soon after the whole city writhed under his public 
rebuke: "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart 
and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost. No 
wonder you persecuted and killed the Christ. Which 
of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? 
They showed you the coming of the Righteous One of 
whom now ye have been the betrayers and murderers." 
Certainly Stephen did not fight with kid gloves. 

Saul and his party could stand no more. They 
must fight for the Faith. Stephen must die. Be 
quite fair to them. They looked for a Messiah in 
power and glory who should make Israel and the faith 
of Jehovah triumphant in the earth. They believed 
that their holy religion was in danger. That it was 
blasphemy to worship a crucified Jew. Is it not 
written in the law "cursed is everyone who is hanged 
on a tree"? 

Men are quite right to fight for what they believe 
to be the truth, but these fought with the bigot temper, 
and the bigot slander, and the bigot misrepresenting 
of the other man's words. Just as in religious con- 
troversies to-day, when Protestants and Roman Catho- 
lics, churchmen and non-churchmen say unkind things 
each about the other. By all means have controversy 
when truth is in danger. Without it Christianity would 
have been swamped long ago, but let it be Christian 
controversy, — kindly and honourable controversy, look- 
ing for truth and not for victory, thinking and believing 
the best about opponents, never using unfair arguments, 
never misrepresenting other men's views, never malign- 
ing the motives of those who differ. Say, we are on 



26 YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 

both sides honest men seeking the truth. Let us listen 
to each other and trust each other. 

Such controversy can do nothing but good, but it 
was too much to expect in those old days. "So they 
stoned Stephen calling upon God and praying, 'Lord 
Jesus receive my spirit. Lord, lay not this sin to their 
charge/ And the witnesses laid down their clothes 
at a young man's feet whose name was Saul." 

IX 

Saul never forgot that day. All through his life 
you can see the keen remorse, "when the blood of thy 
martyr Stephen was shed, I was standing by and con- 
senting to his death. I am not worthy to be called 
an Apostle because I persecuted the Church of God." 

Looking back on it from his later years he would 
probably see this day as one of the moulding influences 
of his life. I wish he had told us how he felt that 
night when the heretic was dead. Was conscience 
stirring? Was remorse beginning? He was a brave 
man himself and had seen a brave man die. He could 
not easily forget that dying prayer. I wonder if Saul 
lay awake that night — if he thought about what was 
happening outside in the darkness where devout men 
carried Stephen to his burial, and frightened women 
sobbed over a mangled corpse, "whose dead face was 
as it were the face of an angel." 

Let me close with a lesson. Trust God when things 
are hopeless. God buries his workers, but carries on 
His work. On the first Good Friday Christ was dead. 
His enemies had triumphed. The hopes of the dis- 
ciples seemed shattered forever. But Easter came. 
>, Now Stephen is dead, the ablest of their champions. 



THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH 27 

The chief hope of Christianity seemed dead with him. 
But truth cannot die. God is behind it. Who would 
have thought as Stephen fell that within a month his 
fiercest opponent would take his place and accomplish 
what Stephen could never have done. 

St. Augustine says in a sermon "that we owe Paul 
to the prayer of Stephen:" "Si Stephanus non or asset 
Ecclesia Paulum non haberet" Truly God moves in a 
mysterious way His wonders to perform. 



CHAPTER IV 
The Crisis of Conversion 

Our last picture was the stoning of Stephen. We 
saw Saul looking down on a mangled corpse whose dead 
face was "as the face of an angel." I ventured to sug- 
gest that from what we know of his tenderness of heart 
in later life that already there would be in him the stir- 
rings of pity and remorse. I still think the same, in 
spite of all the evidence against it. The more I know 
of him the more I think it. 

But if it were so, he certainly gave no outward sign. 
He was 'exceedingly mad' against the new religion. 
He made himself chief of the inquisition. Like Tor- 
quemada in Spain; like Claverhouse on the hills of 
Scotland, he harried the disciples from house to house, 
"and haling men and women committed them to 
prison. " 

Think of his inquisitors visiting houses in the night, 
dragging people out of their beds, and scourging not 
only men, but women. He mentions women three 
times as if in aggravation of his cruelty. Think of 
flogging a woman. The civilized world which took so 
calmly the killing of countless men rose into fierce 
anger last year over the shooting of Edith Cavel, be- 
cause she was a woman. Saul flogged women. He 
compelled the disciples to blaspheme the name of Jesus, 
and if they refused, he voted death for them. He 
tells us that himself. Stephen was not the only one 
stoned by him. He was the terror of the whole 

28 



THE CRISIS OF CONVERSION 29 

countryside. He was cordially detested as well as 
feared. Far off as Damascus they knew his evil fame, 
— "how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jeru- 
salem"; how he hath made havoc of the Church, i.e., 
rooted it up, as a wild boar would root up a garden. 
He was an obstinate, cruel man. Evidently he had 
not profited much by the wise, calm teaching of his old 
master Gamaliel. 

Ah, poor Saul! He was laying up bitter memories 
for himself in later days. He never got over the pain 
of it. Even in his old age, when he knew himself 
forgiven by God, he could never forgive himself. He 
had to go through it all himself later on. He was 
hated, and persecuted, and scourged and stoned. He 
never whines. I think it was rather a comfort to him 
that he should suffer what he had himself inflicted. 
At any rate, he takes it like a man — "rejoicing in 
tribulation. Our light affliction which is but for a 
moment." Saul was a very cruel man, but there was 
nothing small about him. 

Naturally the disciples fled for their lives. All 
except the apostles, the appointed heads of the Church. 
Jerusalem was emptied of disciples; no more street 
preaching, no more meetings in the upper room. Saul 
had wiped out the plague from the Holy City. But 
with bitter anger he found that he had only spread it. 
"They that were scattered abroad went everywhere 
preaching the word." It was the first missionary tri- 
umph of the little Church. God thus overrules the 
designs of men. 

II 

Six months later I find Saul one morning with his 
company riding out of Jerusalem by the Damascus 



30 YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 

gate "breathing out threatenings and slaughter." He 
has 150 miles before him on a most interesting road, if 
his evil temper would let him think of it. Exquisite 
scenery alive with historic memories; back to Naaman, 
the leper, back 2000 years to Abram's old steward, 
Eleazar of Damascus. 

But he was in no mood for scenery. He never did 
care for scenery any way. Not like Our Lord, who 
was a lover of nature, who talks of the lilies how they 
grow, and the red sunset sky, and the fowls of the air, 
and the fields white with the harvest. 

Saul was a man of cities. You find no references 
to nature in his writings. And just now, especially, he 
has something else to think about. He is baffled and 
angry. A Christian conventicle has been set up in 
Damascus and Saul is out hunting disciples. 

Aye, but he is not the only hunter out this morning, 
for the Lord of the disciples is out hunting Saul. Do 
you know Thomson's famous poem, "The Hound of 
Heaven," telling of God's untiring, unceasing pursuit 
of the souls who are fleeing from Him? He is always 
pursuing. Men call it doubt, misgivings, remorse, stir- 
ring of conscience. Men tell me sometimes how they 
lay awake all night, and their thoughts were hell to 
them. Do you ever feel like that — regrets and mis- 
givings, remorse about your life? That means God 
pursuing. It is the " Hound of Heaven " ever after you. 
It is the Good Shepherd on the desolate mountains 
seeking what is lost if so be that He may find it. Think 
solemnly about it. 

For the Christ pursues as we rush on, 
With a sorrowful fall in his pleading tone: 
"Thou wilt tire in the dreary ways of sin, 
I left My home to bring thee in. 



THE CRISIS OF CONVERSION 31 

In its golden street are no weary feet, 
Its rest is pleasant, its songs are sweet." 
And we shout back angrily, hurrying on 
To a terrible home where rest is none: 
"We want not your city's golden street, 
Nor to hear its constant song." 
And still Christ keeps -pursuing us, pur- 
suing all along. 

And as He pursues us, so He pursued Saul. And 
it was harder for Saul to escape in those six days. For 
now he is out of the whirl and rush of life through which 
so many escape God. He has no one to talk to but 
his attendants. He has six days to ride alone. He has 
six nights to think. 

He has been thinking at odd times lately, but had 
shaken off his thoughts. Now that he is alone the 
ghosts are coming back. In the secret tribunal oi 
conscience he has to stand before himself. I feel that 
I am right that conscience was goading him. Jesus on 
the Damascus road knew what was in his heart. "It is 
hard for thee to kick against the goads." God knows 
what he is thinking — what secret misgivings, what 
haunting doubts come back : "Am I right in killing men 
and flogging women for their faith? Could there be 
any doubt Stephen was wrong? After all Isaiah did 
write of a suffering Messiah, 'who hath borne our 
griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him 
stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. ' But surely 
all my life study cannot be wrong. Gamaliel and all 
the clergy cannot be wrong. These are but tempta- 
tions of the devil. To worship that crucified Nazarene 
is blasphemy against God, and I am determined to 
stamp it out. It is my duty to stamp it out." 

He had reached the hilltop looking over Damascus. 
Then — in a moment — the crisis came. Suddenly from 



SS YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 

the heavens flashed a blinding glory, "above the bright- 
ness of the sun"; he says, "shining about me and them 
that travelled with me/' And in the midst of the 
glory he saw — the Christ of God — whom he never again 
lost sight of all his life long. And a voice spake to 
him in the Hebrew tongue — a voice which he never 
ceased hearing all his life long. "Shaoul, Shaoul, why 
persecutest thou Me?" "Who art thou, Lord?" "I 
am Jesus whom thou persecutest." And he believed 
it, believed it instantly. No question, no doubt was 
possible to him then or forever, Trembling and as- 
tonished he fell to the ground in absolute surrender. 
"Lord, what wilt thou have me do?" 

in 

That is the story of the conversion of Saul. Explain 
it as you will; think of it as you will. Saul was the only 
one who knew what happened. As to what he saw and 
heard he never wavered. He tells it repeatedly, and 
always substantially the same story. The men told it dif- 
ferently, confusedly. "They saw the glory. They stood 
speechless hearing a voice, but seeing no one." That is 
what we should expect. It was not meant for them. It 
was meant for him. He knew. It was the unalterable 
conviction of his life. It shook him to the depths of his 
innermost being. He had actually seen Jesus Christ. 

The Hunter of Heaven had got him at last, and all 
life was changed. In an instant, as he fell there 
shattered and blinded by the roadside, he became 
Christ's man utterly and entirely forever and ever. 

Does anyone want to argue about it? You have 
a perfect right to do so, but there is no basis for argu- 
ment. Nobody in the world knows anything about it 



THE CRISIS OF CONVERSION 33 

except Paul. Paul was absolutely certain that he had 
seen the risen Lord. On that certainty he anchored 
all his hopes for time and eternity. All his life long he 
insists, "I know — not from men, or through men — 
but from Jesus Christ/' 

That is what gets me — that absolutely unshakeable 
conviction of the man himself. It was no vision, no 
dream, no hallucination of a disordered fancy. I have 
read the books that explain it away as the dream of a 
hysterical weakling. Paul was no hysterical weakling. 
If ever a man had a sane, healthy mind, Paul had. If 
ever a man felt sure of anything all through his life 
Paul felt sure. If ever a man proved his belief by the 
sacrifice of his whole life, Paul proved it. 

"I have seen the Lord." All his life he reiterated 
that, "I have seen Jesus Christ." It was not books, 
nor arguments, nor evidence of apostles. It was the 
actual appearance of the Risen Lord that made him a 
Christian; that gave him boundless joy and certainty; 
that gave him the Gospel of the Resurrection to preach. 
That is what gave Paul's preaching its tremendous 
reality. That is the difference between his preaching 
and ours. Only yesterday I thought as I meditated on 
the scene that, if Jesus appeared to me as he appeared 
to St. Paul, I would make you spring to your feet and 
follow Him to a man. 

That was his claim to be as good an Apostle as the 
others: "Have I not seen Jesus Our Lord!" When he 
is telling what the apostles told him of the appearances 
of Jesus after his resurrection — to Peter — to John — to 
500 brethren, "Last of all He was seen of me also, 
as of one born out of due time," he puts the appear- 
ance to himself on an absolute par with the others. 



34 YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 

And here is a point hardly ever noticed. When in 
his grand Resurrection chapter he speaks of the glori- 
fied spiritual body that shall be, where did he get his 
idea of the spiritual body ? You feel at once the picture 
in his mind. Where else could he have got the idea — 
the glorified Jesus as he saw him at Damascus, "who 
shall change our vile body that it may be like unto his 
glorious body" — that body which I saw that day at 
the Damascus gate. 

IV 

As one of the evidences of the truth of Christianity, 
do you see the tremendous force of this conversion of 
Paul? That the determined enemy of Christianity, 
should in one hour be so utterly changed into an un- 
shakeable believer, and a devoted lover of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and joyfully sacrifice his whole life to his 
service. Unbelievers in our days may say that it is 
not easy to estimate the evidence for the story of Jesus 
who lived 2000 years ago. But this Saul of Tarsus 
lived in Jesus' time. He was a very clever man. The 
evidence pro and con was ready to his hand. The liv- 
ing men were there to question. He knew all the 
reasons that convinced Annas and Caiaphas that the 
whole thing was an imposture. His whole brilliant 
career was at stake. He had everything to lose; he 
he had nothing to gain. He was absolutely prejudiced, 
the whole attitude of his mind was dead against be- 
lieving. Yet in a moment — account for it as you may 
— he had become Christ's man forever. If Saul of 
Tarsus was mistaken that day, I can only say that it 
was one of the most improbable and incomprehensible 
mistakes in the whole of history. 



THE CRISIS OF CONVERSION 35 



Now I see the attendants lift from the road a broken, 
trembling man, with shattered nerves and eyes blinded 
by the shock, as they lead him by the hand into Da- 
mascus. He refuses food; he refuses greetings. He 
only wants to get away from everybody — to be alone. 
For three terrible days and nights he was alone in 
a dark room, and neither did eat nor drink — alone with 
his conscience, alone with his God — thinking, think- 
ing. When a great soul is being torn up by the roots 
the crisis can only come thus in agony and shame. 

No one can ever tell what passed through his 
soul in these three silent days, but one thought there 
must have been — to still the agony of remorse — the 
thought of the tender, forgiving love of Christ who 
had come to him. That He should come after the 
Resurrection to his beloved disciples in Galilee was 
to be expected, but that he should come to him and 
forgive, and bless, and receive a wicked torturer 
and slaughterer, and persecutor! Ah, Saul never 
could forget that. We have seen how he never for- 
got his wickednessness of the past. But it was be- 
cause he never forgot either the tender kindness of 
Jesus. 

To every true man that is what most deepens 
the sorrow for sin. That the Lord whom he has 
ill-treated should love him and forgive him. Ah, 
it is worth while loving that way. It pays. Christ 
gets great results. Saul became his follower, and lover, 
and devoted slave all the days of his life. The love 
of Christ is the very centre of his gospel. 

With that joy in his heart you cannot entirely 



36 YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 

pity Saul in his terrible struggle. Soon the peace 
of God came stealing into his heart, and the crisis 
ended with a sobbing man on his knees. And the 
Lord saw him, and the message came to Ananias in 
a dream: "Go down Straight Street, and enquire 
for Saul of Tarsus, for, behold, he prayeth." Did you 
ever think of God knowing your street and number 
of your house. " Go down to Sherbrooke Street and 
enquire for A. B., of the parish of St. George's, for 
behold he prayeth!" 

VI 

The next words in the history rather jar on me. 
Immediately, says St. Luke, he began to preach 
Jesus that He is the Son of God. Somehow that 
does not seem like the Saul that we know. I can 
quite see that it would make a great sensation and 
draw much attention to the Gospel of Christ. And 
I can quite believe that after a sudden change the 
really converted drunkard, and the really converted 
prize-fighter that we sometimes hear of, might make 
Christ more real than some of our clergy could make 
Him, but this does not quite fit in with what we 
know of the great souls, the deep, earnest spirits, who, 
after a sudden conversion, have influenced the world. 
They need a breathing space. They need to learn — 
to co-ordinate their troubled thoughts. They need 
to think and meditate, and still the tumults of their 
emotions, and commune in secrecy and silence with 
their souls and with God. 

A reserved man does not talk about these secret 
things of life. Probably Luke never knew. The only 
hint we have is one single verse in the letter to the 



THE CRISIS OF CONVERSION 37 

Galatians: "After it pleased God to reveal His Son 
in me, immediately I conferred not with flesh and 
blood, but I went into Arabia, and returned again 
unto Damascus." That is all. 

You see St. Luke's story is all right about the 
preaching in Damascus, but he does not know, or at 
any rate does not tell about this retirement to Arabia. 
We do not know either, except those few words, but 
at least it leaves room for the conjecture that pic- 
tures the lonely man for months in the deserts of 
Arabia, in the shadow of Mount Sinai, thinking, 
brooding, meditating, restudying his Bible in the new 
light come to him — planning his future in the ser- 
vice of his dear Lord — and above all, praying, living 
in communion with God. That is what makes big 
men. That is what makes great preachers. It would 
make a vast difference in the preaching of Christ's 
gospel if we clergy spent more time in communion 
with God. Brethren, pray for us. 

VII 

Suddenly one day this grave, solemn man reap- 
peared in the city, and at once began his daring 
mission, and "confounded the Jews who dwelt in 
Damascus, proving that this is the very Christ." 

But the Jews would not listen to him. They hated 
him as a renegade. They watched the gates day and 
night to kill him, and at length the disciples one night 
planned his escape, and lowered him over the wall 
in a basket. 

So his first attempt was a bad failure. But you 
could not discourage a man who felt God behind him. 
"I'll make men listen yet," said Disraeli, when he 



38 YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 

failed in his first speech in the House of Commons. 
"I'll make them listen yet," said Paul, when they 
hunted him from Damascus. So he took his next 
step. He would very much like to go back to Jeru- 
salem to see the divinely appointed heads of the 
Church, and especially he wanted to see Peter their 
chief. 

So, friendless and penniless, he started to walk 
that long one hundred and fifty miles. We are told 
nothing of that journey. But you know without 
any telling that the lonely man knelt down in the 
darkness as he passed the spot where Christ appeared 
to him. You know how he must have felt as he 
passed the scene of Stephen's murder. You can feel 
with him as he passed the old college walls in Jeru- 
salem, knowing that his old master and his old friends 
would never speak to him again — a renegade from 
their holy faith. 

However, it would be all right, he thought, when 
he saw the disciples. But the disciples did not want 
to see him. They were afraid of him. They did 
not trust him. It took all the persuasion of his old 
friend Barnabas even to get him an interview with 
Peter and James. 

VIII 

For fifteen days he stayed there in intercourse with 
Peter. The Bible is a very tantalizing book. It says 
no word of these fifteen days. What a dramatic pic- 
ture that intercourse would make. The two great 
leaders of the Church — two honest, earnest, loving men 
— Saul listening, Peter telling the story of the three 
wonderful years with Jesus. 



THE CRISIS OF CONVERSION 39 

I hear Saul impetuously breaking in with questions. 
I fancy him one night opening his heart: "Peter, what 
I feel most is the wonder of His love. That He should 
love and forgive a murderer, a blasphemer, a persecu- 
tor." And Peter replies, "Saul, it was just like Him. 
He was always like that. You don't know my story. 
I was a worse man than you. You were not a coward, 
anyway. He picked me out of all the world to be His 
closest friend, and the night before they killed Him I 
turned against Him and denied Him while He lay help- 
less in His enemies' hands. I cursed and swore that I 
never knew Him. He just raised His eyes as He heard, 
and the sorrow in that look nearly broke my heart. I 
rushed out and wept bitterly. I walked the streets 
all night. I would have given anything to go back 
and tell Him how sorry I was, but I had no chance. 
Next day they crucified Him. It was too late then. 
For three black, awful days I slunk away in my shame 
and misery. The Master who loved me was lying cold 
and dead in Joseph's tomb, and the last words He had 
heard from me were words of blasphemous denial. Oh, 
if He could only know how sorry I was! Then the 
Easter morning came. The Lord was risen. And what 
do you think? I found He had known and was think- 
ing of me those three days in the World of the Departed. 
I found He had left a message with the angels at the 
tomb. 'Go tell my disciples, and especially tell Peter.' 
Tell Peter! Tell me! Could I ever forget that? I 
who had been a traitor, an apostate, I who did not think 
myself a disciple any more. Tell Peter! Do you won- 
der that I love Him? Do you wonder that I would die 
for Him?" 



CHAPTER V 
Saul of Tarsus Finds His Life Work 

Paul on that interesting fortnight's visit did not 
spend all his time with Peter. He went out through 
the city. He tried to preach. He could not keep to 
himself the great discovery. He thought that what so 
convinced him must convince everybody. But he 
failed badly. Nobody would listen to him. Every 
speech was a signal for a riot. Every sentence was 
punctuated with curses and stones. It was a worse 
failure even than that in Damascus. 

He felt it keenly. He tells us later that he went to 
the temple and on his knees told his troubles to God. 
"Lord, nobody will listen to me. They know too much 
about me; that I imprisoned and flogged in every 
synagogue, and when the blood of thy martyr Stephen 
was shed I held the raiment of them that slew him." 

He saw he had failed. I daresay Peter and Barna- 
bas had already told him, "Saul, it is no use, you are 
only making trouble." At last when his life was en- 
dangered the disciples brought him down to Caesarea 
— where so many of the shipping lines called — and 
thence he sailed to Tarsus. 1 M. 

I wonder why? If there were any reason to think 
that his family had become Christian or friendly I 
should think it quite natural that a tired, broken man 

1 Acts ix:30. 
40 



SAUL FINDS HIS LIFE WORK 41 

would want to go home and let his mother comfort him, 
and rest him till his nerves grew quieted and he could 
start again. There is no one like the dear old mother 
at such a time. But there is no justification for sup- 
posing that there were any of his family or friends to 
greet him. Saul had to remain a lonely man all his 
life. He had the Lord Jesus for his friend and that 
must suffice him. 

Without the cheer of sister or of daughter, 

Without the stay of father or of son, 
Lone on the land and homeless on the water, 

Passed he in patience till his work was done. 

A well-known writer suggests that one of his three 
shipwrecks might have occurred on this voyage and 
landed him, without his will, in the harbour of his na- 
tive town. We do not know. At any rate he need 
not have stayed there. But he did. 

Twenty years ago he had left Tarsus to go to college. 
It was a lonely thing to come back after twenty years 
to the boyhood home. In twenty years people die; 
people grow old and forget — and if you come back with 
the stigma of renegade and with the stigma of failure 
when you are approaching forty, they forget still more. 
New faces met him in the old haunts. A new gener- 
ation of boys tramped on the wharf and shouted to the 
lumbermen on the river as he had done twenty years 
before. 

It was lonely. It made a man feel old. Probably 
he tried to preach — and probably he failed. The 
proverb about the prophet in his own country is all the 
stronger when that prophet is not liked. It was a try- 
ing time, but it was God's training for him. All study 
of famous biographies teaches that God trains his great- 



42 YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 

est servants largely by times of depression, and lone- 
liness, and failure, and disappointment. 

There we leave him for the present, thinking, brood- 
ing, forgotten of men, eating out his heart in his boy- 
hood's home, wondering if those sins of his past life 
would forever prevent success in preaching about his 
Lord. 

II 

Again the scene changes. And Saul is not in the 
new scene. It is a city, the magnificent heathen city of 
Antioch in Syria. Paul's story will always take us to 
cities and crowds. Already Tarsus, Jerusalem, Damas- 
cus, now a city greater still and more important in the 
history of Paul and of the early Church. After Jeru- 
salem, Antioch became the second mother of the Church. 
Antioch became the centre of Gentile Christianity. 
Antioch became the central home of Paul for twenty 
years. "And the disciples were called Christians first 
in Antioch." 

Since Antioch bulks so largely in our story we had 
better try to visualize it that we may remember it each 
time we come to it. First from the outside. Call up 
in your minds the north-east angle of the Mediterra- 
nean, the shores of Palestine forming one side and the 
shores of Asia Minor meeting it at right angles. There 
is Antioch on the river Orontes, in touch with all places, 
an ideal centre for a Church which was to spread 
among the Gentiles. Whenever Paul saw from his 
ship that angle of the coast it meant home. Then, 
landing at the Antioch port of Seleucia, he passed up 
through groves of palm, and olive, and myrtle, and 
gardens bright with gorgeous flowers, into the city of 
palaces, the queen of the East, the third metropolis of 



SAUL FINDS HIS LIFE WORK 43 

the world — the nearest approach to home that poor 
Paul ever had. 

You cannot visualize a whole city. When I think 
of Montreal I picture its main artery, St. Catherine 
Street, four miles long, with Mount Royal on the 
north, dominating all. When an Antioch man thought 
of Antioch he thought of its central street, the glorious 
street of the Colonnades, also exactly four miles long, 
paved for the greater part with blocks of white marble 
— with its grove of trees, its palaces and shops, and the 
stately covered colonnade at either side — four miles 
of shelter from the sun and rain. And, dominating 
the whole city, the mountain behind, with its highest 
peak carved into a giant statue of Jupiter, keeping 
guard over the city, the heathen god claiming this 
heathen city for his own. 

Since you cannot get a whole city into your imagi- 
nation, whenever we come to Antioch in this story, 
picture this beautiful central street of the Colon- 
nades, with its branching side streets, and the mighty 
Jupiter dominating it all. 

The inhabitants were mainly the peoples that I have 
pictured to you already — the Greek, the Roman, 
and the Jew. The Greek, who had lost his faith in 
his beautiful gods; the Roman, satiated with his lust 
of pride of mastery : the Jew, in his haughty claim to 
be the sole favourite of the Almighty, standing coldly 
aloof. The Jewish religion, therefore, had little real 
influence. The only religion that counted at all was 
the so-called worship of the ancient gods, the deifica- 
tion of cruelty and lust. Surely, that beautiful proud 
city of Antioch sorely needed the gospel of Jesus 
Christ. 



44 YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 



in 

How did Christianity first touch Antioch ? Through 
the providence of God. Through the blunders of 
Saul and his friends. In the persecution that arose 
about Stephen the hunted disciples travelled as far 
as Antioch, "speaking the word to none save only 
the Jews." Notice that phrase : " speaking only to 
the Jews." Thereby hangs a tale to be told later on. 
But the river of the water of life could not be held 
by such boundaries. The Gentiles wanted to hear, 
and some men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who had not 
the strict prejudice of the Jerusalem Jews, ventured 
to preach to the Gentiles. 

The results were startling. The people came crowd- 
ing in: "The hand of the Lord was with them, and 
a great number believed and turned to the Lord." 
And immediately there arose a problem and a con- 
troversy which afterwards shook the Church to its 
foundations. Shall Israel lose its peculiar glory and 
be merged with other races in the church of the Mes- 
siah? Shall the uncircumcised heathen be admitted 
to the Church on a level with the ancient people of 
God? Must they not first be circumcised and be 
obedient to the law? Must they not first become 
members of the Jewish Church? Keep this in mind 
if you would understand the Epistles of St. Paul. 

The news about the Antioch Mission reached the 
heads of the Church at Jerusalem. They had had 
to face the question already. Peter in the teeth of his 
own prejudices had felt impelled to baptize the heathen 
centurion, Cornelius, because he saw the visible sign 
of God's approval. The gift of the Holy Ghost had 



SAUL FINDS HIS LIFE WORK 45 

come on Cornelius and his house. The Jerusalem 
Christians immediately challenged his action and 
brought him before the Apostolic Council. Peter 
related the whole story and defended himself: " What 
else could I do?" he asked. " Who am I that I should 
withstand God?" And the Apostles and the brethren 
listened in wonder. Their prejudices also were strong 
against such action, but when they had heard they held 
their peace and glorified God and said, " Then hath 
God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto 
life." It was evidently a new idea to them. 

Now came to them the news from Antioch and they 
decided to send down a delegate to look into it, and they 
chose Saul's friend, Joseph Barnabas. You remem- 
ber Barnabas, the man who introduced Saul to the 
Apostles when they declined to see him. The "story 
suggests that he was an old friend — perhaps a friend 
of his college days. Since he is prominent in the later 
story you need to know him, to recognize him when 
you see him. 

IV 

As I see him he is quite a contrast to his friend. 
Barnabas is built in a large mould — a big, handsome, 
bearded man, with honest eyes, and what we call a 
good face — a face to be trusted at first sight. He is 
a bright, cheery comforting sort of man — straight, 
simple, not particularly clever, but very sympathetic 
and, above all, a man of deep and real religion. That 
is Barnabas. Just the right friend for a man like 
Paul. You get hints for this portrait here and there 
through the Acts if you use your imagination as 
you read. You find that the wild highlanders of 



46 YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 

Lycaonia one day mistook him and Paul for gods. 
They called Barnabas Jupiter, — the stately majestic 
father of the gods; and they called Paul Mercury 
— the small, swift, eloquent message of Olympus. 
That gives you at once the appearance of the two men. 
As to his character. We first hear definitely of 
him at Jerusalem when the young Church in its first 
enthusiasm started what seems to have been an unwise 
experiment in Socialism — rich and poor to share and 
share alike. It did not work, but Barnabas took 
part and sold his estate for the poor and brought the 
money and laid it at the Apostles' feet (what Ananias 
and Sapphira pretended to do). Only a generous 
enthusiast would do that. Next I notice that he must 
have been a very kindly, sympathetic man, for the 
Apostles named him Barnabas, the Son of Consolation. 
And soon after St. Luke expresses the opinion of the 
Church, " He was a good man and full of the Holy 
Ghost." 



Barnabas came to Antioch and saw the street of 
the Colonnades and the great statue of the god, but 
he was more interested in the side street where the 
Christians met. It was called Singon Street in the old 
Church traditions. ' When he came," I read, " and 
had seen the grace of God he was glad and exhorted 
them all with purpose of heart they should cleave unto 
the Lord." He evidently kept clear of the burning 
question of the day. He did not tell them to be cir- 
cumcised or to become Jews. He was a simple man, 
but he saw through to the essentials. " Cleave unto 
the Lord," he said. That was his religion. 



SAUL FINDS HIS LIFE WORK 47 

But still the controversy did not cease. The prob- 
lem was there still, and Barnabas probably felt that he 
was not a big enough man to handle it, and he knew 
the man who could handle it. There was no petty 
jealousy in Barnabas. " Then departed Barnabas 
to Tarsus to seek Saul." One day in Tarsus, Saul, 
restless and despondent, suddenly came on his big 
friend in the street. "Saul, you are needed; come 
back with me to Antioch." 

The hour had struck. The man was ready. Saul 
of Tarsus had found his life work. 

VI 

A year has elapsed. The Christians of Antioch 
are assembled with their presbyters in Singon Street 
for a special service of prayer and fasting, and waiting 
for guidance from the Holy Spirit for a special under- 
taking which they had in mind — " While they minis- 
tered before the Lord fasting." The Greek word used 
for their ministrations is that from which we derive 
our word Liturgy — our word for the Communion 
office. We need not discuss it further here. Nat- 
urally, the Holy Communion, the central service, 
would be the chief part. 

What were the special devotions for? 

During the past year Saul and Barnabas had 
ministered in the city. We are only told that for a 
whole year "they assembled with the Church and 
taught much people." It was probably a happy, rest- 
ful time in Saul's troubled life, going in and out 
with his old friend in quiet pastoral duties, and it 
seems to have been a successful year too, for we find 
five prominent ministers now in Antioch. 



48 YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 

We, after nineteen centuries of Christianity, can 
never realize all it meant to man when it was new. 
It is an old story with us. It was new tidings to 
them— tidings of wonder, and joy, and hope. " We 
know that the Son of God is come. We believe in 
the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection of the dead, 
and the life of the world to come. We believe in the 
Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life." 

And all that year it would seem that the feeling 
had been growing that they must spread the good news. 
" This is the day of good tidings and we hold our 
peace. The whole heathen world is around us dreary 
and helpless and sinful as we were a year ago. We 
must go and tell them." They believe that this 
strong impulse is from the Holy Ghost. Now they 
are waiting for His further guidance. Whom shall 
they send? 

Watch the congregation assembled with their five 
clergy. Three white men, two black men from Africa. 
Read the list in Acts xiii. 1-7. Barnabas and Lucius 
of Cyrene, and Simeon that was called Niger or black, 
and Manaen the foster-brother of Herod the tetrarch, 
and Saul. I like to look at the group. First, the 
tall handsome Barnabas; next to him, a coloured 
man Lucius of Cyrene, an African town; next to 
him, Simeon Niger or negro — not what we know as 
negro — the northern African was a different type. 
Was he also of Cyrene like Lucius? Simon, the 
Cyrenian? Was he Simon the Cyrenian who car- 
ried the cross for Jesus on the way for Calvary? I 
think it quite probable, though I have never seen it 
suggested before, and the evidence is only the prob- 
ability that I refer to. If I am right, cannot you 



SAUL FINDS HIS LIFE WORK 49 

imagine his interest in Christianity? Next to him 
the foster-brother of King Herod. That set us think- 
ing. Just think of it. Two boys mothered at the 
same breast. One a tyrant, an adulterer, a mur- 
derer, the other a preacher of the Gospel of Christ. 
To these add Saul of Tarsus, and I think you have 
as interesting a group of clergy as you have ever 
seen. * "* 

Now, then, who is to go on the heathen mission? 
Black or White? Doubtless they drew lots, as at the 
election of Matthias. They asked the Holy Ghost 
to guide them by the lot. That I think is the meaning 
of the words: "The Holy Ghost said separate me 
Barnabas and Saul." 

Barnabas and Saul! The congregation had prayed 
for guidance, but I wonder if they liked the answer? 

The beloved Barnabas, the brilliant Saul, the very 
pick of the Antioch ministers! Are they to lose their 
best? I think that only their deep belief in the pres- 
ence of the Holy Ghost restrained their murmuring. 
I have heard a good deal of such murmuring in the Old 
Country, when the most brilliant of our clergy were 
sent to the mission field. I have heard over and over 
(you have heard it too) " are there not plenty of heathen 
at home? " 

There is here a great missionary lesson for the 
Church. Were there not plenty of heathen at home, 
there in a city of 500,000. But they, at least, were 
within reach of the good news, whether they cared for 
it or not. The poor outside heathen had no chance 
at all. And so the Holy Spirit of God spake in their 
hearts. "Sacrifice yourselves. Send them your best." 
Think of it to-day in the Church's missionary work. 



50 YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 

Six hundred millions of these heathens, in the world 
still. 

The Church instantly bowed to the decision. They 
laid their hands on them in loving benediction, and the 
two friends went away together on their perilous jour- 
ney of three long years. 

VII 

Next chapter we shall follow them on that journey. 
Now let us linger a little in Antioch. Paul and 
Barnabas are gone. Three clergy remain — the two 
Africans and the king's foster-brother, but the Church 
kept growing — growing fast. The next words indicate 
it, "and the disciples were called Christians first in 
Antioch. " The name we Gentiles glory in to-day was 
started that year in Singon Street in the city of the 
Street of the Colonnades. I do not think it originated 
with Christians. They called themselves the Disciples, 
the Brethren, the Saints. It certainly did not originate 
with the Jews, who would never give a name acknowl- 
edging the Christ. They called them "the sect of the 
Nazarenes." 

It must have come from the general public, who had 
to have some name for these people who were begin- 
ning to be talked about. Probably it began as a nick- 
name in the slang of the town, but it shows that they 
were becoming important, and since they embraced 
every race and every colour, they had to have a com- 
prehensive title. Black or white, rich or poor, male 
or female, Greek, or Roman, or Jew, their one dis- 
tinguishing mark was that they were followers of the 
Christ. Let us not forget why we are called Christ- 
ians. 



SAUL FINDS HIS LIFE WORK 51 



VIII 

They grew so fast that in a few years later they had 
in Antioch the full organization of the Church — bishop, 
priests and deacons, without which there was no church 
of Christ anywhere in the world for 1500 years. Have 
you ever heard of St. Ignatius of Antioch, the most 
famous of the early bishops? He was born in the life- 
time of St. Paul. He was a disciple of St. John. He 
was fifteen years old at the time of that missionary 
service in Singon Street. I wonder if the boy was there 
that day. About thirty years later he was con- 
secrated Bishop of Antioch, and thirty years later still 
he was flung to the lions in the Roman amphitheatre. 
One of the most pathetic stories in history is the story 
of that dear old Bishop of Antioch going up to die. 
On the way they had to rest at Smyrna, where Poly- 
carp, a disciple of St. John, was bishop — and the bishops 
of Ephesus and Magnesia with several presbyters and 
deacons came to receive his blessing, and the old 
man wrote letters to the churches around. 

Let me give you a few sentences out of these epistles 
of Ignatius. He was very uneasy lest the unity of the 
Church should be broken — lest sects and divisions 
would arrive when he was gone. To keep the unity, he 
says, cling to your bishops. They are the guardians 
of unity. 

"Remember in your prayer the Church of Syria, 
which now has God for its shepherd instead of me. 
Jesus Christ must be its bishop when I am gone." 

"Keep in unity with your bishops, and presbyters, 
and deacons who have been appointed according to the 
mind of Jesus Christ. Apart from that there is no 



52 YOUTH AND PREPARATION TIME 

Church. Do nothing without your bishops, who to 
the uttermost bounds of the earth, are according to the 
will of Jesus Christ. Reverence your bishop as you 
would the Lord himself. Reverence your presbyters 
as the holy apostles." 

It is no part of my purpose now to discuss this 
subject. Some day I hope to lecture fully about it, 
but I cannot pass from the Church of Antioch without 
referring to it. It has become a very important subject 
in recent years owing to the earnest efforts of Christian 
people towards reunion, especially the great Faith and 
Order Movement started in America. Since three- 
fourths of all Christendom is under episcopal rule the 
question of the episcopate has to be discussed. And 
there is no more hopeful sign of the sincerity of these 
movements than the frank, candid way it is being ap- 
proached on all sides. 



PART III 
THE MASTER BUILDER 



PART III 
THE MASTER BUILDER 



CHAPTER VI 

The Fight for Freedom 

Paul and Barnabas are starting out on the Church's 
first missionary expedition to the heathen. Watch 
them as they start, with some of their church people 
seeing them off, from Singon Street, through the street 
of the Colonnades, under the colossal shadow of Jupi- 
ter, to the pier of Seleucia, which is visible still on 
clear days down under the sea. 

I think they are happy as the ship glides out into 
the deep blue Mediterranean. For they are two close 
friends going off together, and they are young enough 
yet to feel the thrill of an unknown adventure, and they 
have a mission that rouses their highest enthusiasm, 
and they know as few other men have known the cer- 
tainty that they are sent by God. And another pleas- 
ant thing, to Barnabas at least, they have his young 
cousin, John Mark, as their attendant. You remember 
John Mark in the gospel story. His mother Mary kept 
open house for the Apostles at Jerusalem, where they 
came together in the evening to talk and to rest. 
When Peter escaped from the prison he made straight 
for that house and found his friends there assembled, 

53 



54 THE MASTER BUILDER 

praying for him. Young Mark was evidently a favour- 
ite of his. He calls him in an Epistle, "Marcus, my 
son." Probably that lad and his mother knew more 
of the inner thoughts of the Apostles than any other 
family in Jerusalem. 

II 

So they sail away from the harbour of Antioch. 
Many proud expeditions have left that harbour of 
Antioch before and since. Powerful kings and great 
generals, and dashing armies of crusaders. But history 
has forgotten them. When travellers are to-day shown 
the old pier under the sea, it is as the starting point of 
three poor humble missionaries going out to tell the 
heathen the story of Jesus. 

Now I see them landing at Barnabas' old home at 
Cyprus, where friends are greeting their big pleasant 
friend, and for his sake welcoming his two companions. 
Now they are across the island in the white city of 
Paphos by the sea, telling their wonderful story. The 
pro-consul, Sergius Paulus, has asked them to Govern- 
ment House to tell it to him. His evil genius, the sor- 
cerer Elymas, is present, snarling, fighting hard for his 
own hand, defying Paul, blaspheming Jesus, striving to 
turn the pro-consul from the faith. Paul is capable of 
pretty strong language when a man does that. "O, 
thou full of all evil and villainy, thou son of the devil, 
thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease 
to pervert the right way of the Lord. Behold, the 
hand of the Lord is upon thee, thou shalt be blind 
for a season." Like a whipped cur the sorcerer fled, 
"and the pro-consul believed and turned to the Lord." 

Whatever the reason, one is conscious from this point 



THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM 55 

of a curious change in the story. From this point Paul 
is the chief figure. Barnabas is moving into the back- 
ground. And at this point, curiously enough, the name 
is changed. As Abram became Abraham and Simon 
became Peter at a crisis in the story of each, so we find 
at this crisis Saul became Paul. His Jewish name is 
changed for his Gentile name. Nobody ever calls him 
anything else in all the rest of his story. 

in 

From Cyprus they follow the course of the trading 
ships to Perga, on the mainland, and here an unpleasant 
incident occurred, which had very serious results five 
years later. Young Mark refused to go on. Perhaps 
he wanted to go back to his mother — perhaps he was 
frightened at the dangers in front — perhaps he was 
vexed that his cousin Barnabas was taking second place. 
At any rate, he took advantage of a homebound ship 
and left them there in the lurch, and Paul resented it 
sharply. He had no use for a shirker. 

They continued their journey without him — up the 
mountain road, into the dangerous interior — across 
rushing torrents — through passes which were dreaded 
by the whole country round as the dens of the bandits. 
What happened to them in those first months no one 
has told. Perhaps we should place here the perils of 
rivers, and perils of robbers which Paul mentions in 
his letters later. 

IV 

The whole expedition occupied probably three years, 
very slightly sketched for us. As these lectures have 
to be kept within narrow bounds, I shall only give you 
two glimpses of them on the road. 



56 THE MASTER BUILDER 

The first is to give you a specimen of Paul's preach- 
ing. Perhaps a year after leaving Antioch they came 
to a mountain town of the same name. (They had the 
Canadian habit up there of repeating the names of 
famous towns.) On the Sabbath they went to the 
Synagogue service. They sat on the strangers' seat, 
wearing the Tallith on their heads to indicate that they 
were Jews, as distinguished from the Gentile proselytes 
who usually formed part of the congregation. After 
the prayers and the reading of the Lessons, the chief 
rabbi turned courteously to the two strangers, "Sirs, 
if you have any words of exhortation to the people, 
say on." That gave Paul his chance. He arose, and 
making a gesture with his hands to the congregation, 
began his sermon: "Men of Israel and ye proselytes 
of the Gentiles, give audience." 

Paul was a true orator. A true orator must have 
some convictions that he would die for if necessary, 
and he must have the tact to put these convictions 
attractively. He began by conciliating the Jews, tell- 
ing the glorious history of the past; of Jehovah's care 
and training of this chosen people of God. But he 
explained that all this glory of the history of the past 
was but the preparation for the greater glory of the 
future. He points out that their prophets have borne 
witness to a great Messiah to come, not to destroy the 
Law, but to fulfil it. So far the Jews are with him. 
Now comes the startling thing. "I am here to pro- 
claim that the Messiah has come." See, he says, how 
he fits in with the old prophecies; see how the great 
forerunner, John the Baptist, was foreseen by Malachi. 
True, our leaders at Jerusalem have rejected and 
crucified the Messiah, but that too was foretold by 



THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM 57 

the prophets, "He was to be despised and rejected of 
men." They have fulfilled the prophecies in condemn- 
ing him. 

Then comes the most startling statement of all. 
Our rulers blindly killed the Messiah, "but God has 
raised him from the dead." (You can feel the audience 
catching their breath.) That too is part of our 
prophecies. "Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One 
to see corruption." That resurrection, he says, is God's 
greatest proof. After his resurrection he was seen for 
many days by those who were with him, who are now 
his witnesses to the people of Israel. 



No wonder they were stirred. A pretty fair amount 
of excitement for one sermon. And he closes with 
solemn, daring words: "Be it known unto you, there- 
fore, men and brethren, that through this Jesus is 
proclaimed unto you the forgiveness of sins — and in 
Him all who have faith are justified from all trans- 
gressions. Beware, therefore, lest that come upon you 
which is spoken by our prophet Habakkuk, ' Behold ye 
despisers, and wonder and perish. For I work a work 
in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, 
though a man declare it unto you/ " 

That gives you the general line of Paul's sermons 
to Jews. With Gentiles he takes a different line, as 
we shall see later. Paul had not failed this time. 
He left them gasping with excitement. The congre- 
gation crowded around him beseeching him to stay 
and repeat these things next Sabbath. All the week 
they talked of nothing else, and on the next Sabbath 
' came almost the whole city together to hear the word 



58 THE MASTER BUILDER 

of God." The synagogue was crowded to the doors 
and beyond, but many of that crowd were Gentiles. 
Paul had hinted that his message was for all — that the 
Messiah was for all. The Jews could not stand that. 
They too had been talking together all the week. 
They came into church angry and embittered. The 
prayers were spoiled for them, every thing was spoiled. 
When Paul arose to speak he was greeted with howls 
and curses. As he argued they sprang up in fierce 
opposition, contradicting and blaspheming. 

Paul bore it as long as he could. Then with a 
stern gesture he forced them into silence. He had 
to decide quickly. In a moment during the uproar 
he made the decision of his life — a decision which caused 
a perfect revolution in the church of the future. In 
slow, measured words, tense with restrained emotion, 
he announces it, " It was necessary that the word of 
God should first have been spoken to you; but seeing 
that ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy 
of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. For so 
hath the Lord commanded us, saying, ' I have set 
thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest 
be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.' 

That sermon marked a crisis for Paul and for the 
Church. That day Paul nailed his colours to the 
mast. The Jew is no longer the sole favourite of God. 
The Church is for all the world. To us that is a mere 
truism. To the Jewish world of Paul's day it was 
nothing less than a revolution. 

After that there was no staying in Pisidia. The 
Jews stirred up the honourable women, and in all ages 
when the honourable women get after a man he may 
as well get out. The honourable women stirred up 



THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM 59 

the honourable men, and the missionaries were driven 
across the border. 

VI 

Away in the mountains three months later we have 
another glimpse of the expedition. It is the mountain 
town of Lystra. It seems a festival or market day, 
for the town is crowded. Paul is preaching in a public 
place. In his audience is a poor cripple whose wist- 
ful eyes are holding the preacher. He positively 
cannot get on with his sermon with these pathetic 
eyes on him. Paul looking earnestly on him and per- 
ceiving that he had the faith to be healed cried with a 
loud voice, " Stand upright on thy feet — and he 
leaped and walked, and the people cried out in the 
speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us 
in the likeness of men." And they called Barnabas 
Jupiter (from his stately appearance), and Paul, Mercu- 
rius, because he was the chief speaker. And the priest 
of Jupiter brought oxen and garlands and would have 
done sacrifice with the people, but Barnabas and Paul 
rent their garments and rushed in among the crowd. 
" Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of 
like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye 
should turn from these vanities unto the living God, 
which made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all the 
things that are therein." 

Not quite so tactful as his sermon in Pisidia. 

It is dangerous to meddle with the passions of a 
mob. It is dangerous to call their gods vain things; 
it is dangerous in the midst of their superstitious 
emotions, when they want to worship you, to make 
them feel ridiculous by having mistaken you for a god. 



60 THE MASTER BUILDER 

Mobs are ticklish things to handle. This crowd grows 
silent, grows sulky; begins to listen to the hostile 
Jews from Iconium. " If they are not gods, then 
they healed the cripple by the power of the Evil One." 
So when Paul tried to preach next day he could scent 
trouble in the air. He found a changed atmosphere. 
The crowd is hostile. Soon the yelling roughs from the 
back lanes are jostling and crowding around him. Soon 
the stones are flying. He sees that there is no escape. 
He is hit. He is down. His eyes are closed, but his 
brain is forming vivid pictures of another stoning 
twelve years before in which he himself took part and 
a dead face, that was as the face of an angel. Soon a 
stunning blow on the head sends his pictures flying, 
and Barnabas is looking on another dead face, and look- 
ing out into the lonely years without his comrade. 
But Paul is not dead. It would take more than that 
to kill him while his great life work remained undone. 

VII 

And here is a very interesting coincidence. Twelve 
years ago the young Paul had been a spectator at the 
stoning of Stephen, and largely as the result of that 
stoning the Church had gained her doughtiest cham- 
pion. This day a frightened lad is spectator at the 
stoning of Paul — a Lystra boy living with his mother 
and grandmother, and largely as a result of that ston- 
ing, Paul is going to win his best fellow-worker, to be 
to him as a son in his old age. We hear nothing of 
him here, but two years afterwards in passing through 
this town of Lystra Paul finds young Timothy a con- 
vert of his own. Long years afterwards, when Timothy 
is a bishop, Paul writes to him praising the religious 



THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM 61 

influence of his mother, Eunice, and his grandmother, 
Lois, and he reminds him, " Remember, Timothy, 
what I suffered in Lystra." So you see there is little 
doubt that he was there at the stoning. 

We cannot follow this journey in further detail. 
When they reached Derbe they stopped and turned 
back in their tracks — over all the towns where they 
preached the gospel. They made choice of fit persons 
to serve in the sacred ministry of the Church and 
ordained presbyters in every city. These presbyters 
could not do much preaching. They did not know 
much themselves, but they could remember and repeat 
what was carefully taught to them, and they could 
administer the sacraments as the Lord commanded. 
Thus ends the first missionary journey. 

VIII 

So they return to Antioch, under the shadow of 
Jupiter, across the Street of the Colonnades, down to 
Singon Street, and there at a gathering of the church 
which had sent them out three years ago, we are told 
in two lines, "they rehearsed all that God had done 
with them and how he had opened a door of faith unto 
the Gentiles." You can easily imagine for yourselves 
the interest of that meeting. I have no time for it 
now. 

I am thinking, rather, of the night time, when the 
meeting was over and Paul and Barnabas were talking 
privately with the chief lay people and with the clergy, 
the two Africans and the king's foster-brother: "How 
are things doing here in Antioch?" "Very badly; 
they could hardly be worse. There is trouble ahead." 
"What is the trouble? " "O, just the old trouble with 



62 THE MASTER BUILDER 

the Jerusalem people, but now things are coming to 
a crisis. A little while ago certain men came down 
from Jerusalem and taught the brethren here, * Except 
ye be circumcised after the custom of Moses ye cannot 
be saved.' Our Gentile converts are puzzled and irri- 
tated. We have been teaching them free salvation 
for Jew and Gentile who cleave unto the Lord. Those 
men say we are wrong; that these brethren must be 
circumcised and obey the Jewish ordinances. So things 
are pretty miserable. If something is not done soon 
we are likely to have the Church split in two." 

Evidently it was quite time Paul and Barnabas got 
back. The big fight was on everywhere. Not only 
away in their lonely mission, but here in Antioch, and 
in Jerusalem, — all over the Church. It was a fight 
for liberty, and Paul set his face grimly to fight it to 
a finish. He would not let his Gentile converts be 
dragged under the yoke of Judaism. He would not 
let Christianity become a Jewish sect. He flung out 
his challenge, which later he repeated: "Stand fast, 
therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you 
free, and be not entangled with the yoke of bondage." 

IX 

To understand Paul's lifelong fight for liberty in 
the Church you must try to understand his opponents. 
They too, had their deep religious convictions. The 
divine law of the Jews demanded isolation from the 
heathen. The idolatry and abominable immorality of 
heathendom made it necessary. "Come ye out from 
among them and touch not the unclean thing." Touch 
not, taste not, handle not. It was just like the law of 
caste in India. As Peter said to Cornelius, "It is 



THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM 63 

unlawful for a man who is a Jew to keep company or 
come unto one of another nation." The only way in 
which a Gentile could join in the worship of Jehovah 
was by becoming a proselyte and obeying the Jewish 
ordinances. Mark you, this was the law of God — the 
rule of religion for a thousand years. Naturally they 
felt that this must go on. The Jewish Christians 
thought that Christianity should be just a purer, holier 
form of Judaism. 

Now comes this revolutionary Paul. He says no, 
the old law was only for a limited time — only a prepa- 
ration for the kingdom of the Messiah. Christ is the 
Messiah, not for Israel only, but for the whole of 
humanity. When the Gentile comes to Christ, when 
his idolatry is abandoned, and his immorality gone, 
Jew and Gentile stand equal as brothers in the uni- 
versal Church. 

There is the whole question. Both sides claim the 
authority of God. Both were equally determined. In 
the face of this difficulty how was there ever to be a 
united Church? The solution of the problem seemed 
in that day almost impossible, and without the inter- 
vention of God's grace on His servants it would have 
been impossible. But God gave to the Apostles the 
wisdom and discretion and firmness necessary, and 
through His grace Paul became the great instrument 
in accomplishing a work necessary to the very existence 
of a Catholic — a Universal Church. 

You see Paul was determined to fight, and Paul 
felt he could win, but he saw it would not do to win at 
the cost of splitting the Church in two — a Jewish 
Christian Church, with its centre at Jerusalem; and 
a Gentile Christian Church, with its centre at Antioch. 



64 THE MASTER BUILDER 

The Church in all ages needs not merely determined 
fighters for right, but also reasonable, sympathetic, 
statesman-like men, who will go and talk things over 
with the other man, and try to understand his position. 
Clearly there must be no schism, and clearly the 
whole position must be taken before the heads of the 
Church. So I read, "the brethren appointed Paul and 
Barnabas and certain others to go up to Jerusalem to 
the Apostles and elders about this question. " 

x 

Now we are in Jerusalem. It is the first synod of 
the Catholic Church. Not in a stately synod hall. 
Probably in the upper room of the house of John Mark's 
mother. But no stately council of Nice or Trent had 
so vital an issue before it. No doubt it had been 
prefaced by very earnest prayer. As far as we can 
judge James, who was Bishop of Jerusalem, presided, 
and since he was known to be a very strict Jew I 
dare say Paul's opponents hoped much from his po- 
sition. Both sides evidently tried to win adherents. 
There is a great deal of human nature even in Church 
synods. Now the lists are set, the big fight is on. 

I read, "After there had been much questioning." 
I know enough about Synods with burning questions 
to know what that meant. The attack of the Judaisers, 
the replies of their opponents, strong arguments and 
sometimes hot words — a long, eager controversy — prob- 
ably for hours. Then the Apostles rose to speak, and 
the multitude kept silence. 

Peter was the first speaker. He spoke strongly 
against the Judaisers and in favour of Paul: "You 
are well aware/' he said, " that these heathen in Syria 



THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM 65 

are not the first heathen who have come to the Church. 
I myself was chosen by God to begin this work, which 
Paul is continuing. You know how I baptized the 
heathen centurion Cornelius, how God, which knoweth 
the heart, bare them witness, giving them the Holy 
Ghost even as He did unto us. He made no distinc- 
tion between us and them. Now, therefore, why tempt 
ye God, putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples, 
which neither our fathers nor we are able to bear. 
We believe that they and we together shall be saved 
in the same way through the grace of the Lord Jesus." 

That was a hard knock for the Judaisers. However, 
there was still hope, James had not spoken yet. Then 
Paul and Barnabas were called, and all the multitude 
kept silence and hearkened unto Barnabas and Paul, 
rehearsing what wonders God had wrought among 
the Gentiles by them. You can imagine how elo- 
quently Paul fought his cause. 

And after they had held their peace, James arose. 
This was the sensational moment. Both sides waited 
with bated breath for his decision. No judgment would 
have such weight with the Judaising party as his. 
He was a thorough Jew — if anything a narrow Jew. 
In garb and appearance he was like John the Baptist, 
a stern, silent, deeply holy man, with the bare feet 
and unshorn head of the Nazarite. 

When James arose and solemnly pronounced that 
the Mosaic customs were not of eternal obligation, 
and that he agreed with Peter and with Paul, that prac- 
tically closed the question. The Council closed in a 
spirit of charity and mutual forbearance. They had 
sought the guidance of the Holy Spirit; they accepted 
this as his guidance, and Paul and Barnabas were sent 



66 THE MASTER BUILDER 

back happy to their church in Antioch, carrying this 
Apostolic letter as their authority if there should be 
further trouble: 

"The Apostles and elders unto the brethren of the Gentiles 
in Antioch, and Syria, and Cilicia, greeting: For much as we have 
heard that certain which went out from us have troubled you 
with words subverting your souls, it seemed good unto us to send 
Silas and others with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, who have 
hazarded their lives for the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. 

"It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you 
no greater burden than these necessary things; that ye abstain 
from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things 
strangled, and from the fornication, from which if ye keep your- 
selves ye shall do well. Fare ye well/* 



CHAPTER VII 
Second Missionary Tour 

Happy and triumphant after their signal victory 
at the Council of Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas re- 
turned to Antioch and there I read, " they tarried 
teaching and preaching the word of the Lord with many 
others also." Amongst these others were Silas, who 
had been sent with them from Jerusalem by the Apos- 
tles, and also, as we learn from the Epistle to the Gala- 
tians, Peter, who on one of his tours had come down 
to Antioch, and brought with him his young favourite, 
John Mark. You remember young Mark, who had 
deserted Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary 
expedition. 

" Paul and Barnabas tarried together in Antioch." 
In the light of later history that little statement is 
pathetic. The two old friends, after their three years 
missionary tour, after winning side by side the fight 
for the Church's freedom, were now living happily 
together in the quiet comradeship of pastoral work 
in Antioch. How little they thought that it would 
be their last year together. That before the year was 
over there should come through their own fault a 
break in that close friendship which should part them, 
never again to meet on earth. 

sit is a sorrowful story, but very human. Two 

67 



68 THE MASTER BUILDER 

most unpleasant incidents spoiled what should have 
been one of the happiest years of their life. 

II 

Paul and Barnabas, and Silas, and Peter, and Mark, 
and the king's foster-brother, and the two Africans, 
were working happily together, rejoicing in their new 
freedom, living in pleasant intercourse with Jew and 
Gentile converts alike, when one day another band of 
the bigoted Christian Jews came down from Jerusalem. 
They dared not oppose the Apostolic decree, but by 
their haughty, stand-off attitude toward the Gentile 
converts they made things very unpleasant. 

Paul could stand this all right so long as his com- 
rades stood by him, but soon to his surprise he sees 
Peter wavering. Peter had fought bravely beside 
him for the equality of the Jew and the Gentile in 
the Church, but it is not easy for men to shake off 
altogether the prejudices of a lifetime. Peter in 
this city of strangers naturally associated much with 
the Jerusalem people who were old acquaintances, 
and soon there were signs that he was leaning to their 
side. The other Christian Jews were influenced by 
Peter, even Barnabas began to keep aloof from the 
Gentile converts. Naturally these converts were very 
much hurt. Paul bore with it as long as he could, 
but he soon saw that a determined stand must be taken, 
even at the risk of vexing his comrades. 

There is no word of all this in the history, but ten 
years afterwards Paul tells it in his Galatian letter: 
" But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood 
him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For 
before that certain men came from James he did eat 



SECOND MISSIONARY TOUR 69 

with the Gentiles, but when they were come he with- 
drew and separated, fearing them which were of the 
circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled like- 
wise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was 
carried away with their dissimulation. But when I 
saw that they walked not uprightly according to the 
truth of the Gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, 
if thou, being a Jew, etc." 1 

It was a hard thing for Paul to rebuke his closest 
friends in a public assembly, but hard things have to 
be done. Evidently his action was effective. Barna- 
bas and Peter were doubtless big enough men to ac- 
knowledge their fault, and so the situation was saved, 
but I cannot help suspecting that it made a little rift 
within the lute, which accounts for later troubles. 
Public rebukes are not easily forgotten even by good 
men. 

in 

Three months later the next trouble came. It is 
time for Paul and Barnabas to set out again on the 
next missionary journey. Barnabas very much wants 
to take his young cousin, John Mark, again. "No," 
said Paul, "I cannot trust any man who deserted us 
as he did. This work of God is too serious to be in- 
jured by shirkers. I will not have young Mark again." 
Barnabas pleaded, Paul was determined — neither would 
give in. Probably the recent wavering of Peter and 
Barnabas was referred to. One word brought on 
another, "and the contention was so sharp between 
them that they separated one from the other," never 
to meet again. It is a sorrowful story, but, alas, it is so 

1 Gal. ii: 14. 



70 THE MASTER BUILDER 

human that we can easily understand it. The very 
depth of their affection made the contention the 
sharper. Each thought the other should yield. So 

"Each spake words of high disdain, 
Sharp words that hurt his heart's best brother, 
But never either found another 
To keep the lonely heart from pain. 
Like cliffs that had been rent asunder, 
They parted not to meet again." 

The Bible is very candid about the failure of its 
heroes, and it is some comfort to us, who are very faulty, 
that God can make saints out of very faulty people. 
But it would be happy for us if our quarrels had as 
noble a cause. It was no selfish quarrel as to who 
should be more successful, or who should gain some- 
thing. It was just a difference as to the best way of 
serving Christ, whether by the gentler way of indul- 
gence to young Mark, or by the sterner way of putting 
Mark aside. Well for us if our quarrels had no worse 
ground than that. 

You may be sure Paul often looked back to the days 
when that faithful comrade stood by him when others 
suspected him, especially to that never-to-be-forgotten 
day when he found his life work, when "Barnabas 
came to Tarsus to seek Saul." You may be sure 
Barnabas, too, thought regretfully of those days of 
loving comradeship. 

It is pleasant to look forward to later years when 
Paul writes affectionately of his old comrade — when 
Peter writes of the Epistles " of our beloved brother 
Paul "—when Paul found that young Mark was a bet- 
ter man than he had thought: "Bring Mark to me; 
he is profitable to the ministry." 1 And it is some com- 

x 2 Tim. iv:n. 



SECOND MISSIONARY TOUR 71 

fort for faulty people like ourselves to see that God 
could make holy saints out of these faulty men. 

IV 

At any rate God's work must not suffer. So Bar- 
nabas took Mark and sailed into Cyprus, where an 
old tradition says that he died for his Lord; and Paul 
chose Silas. I am sure Silas was a wise friend and a 
valuable missionary. But he was not Barnabas. 

I think Paul was already feeling the stir of that 
ambitious impulse which afterwards took him ever west- 
ward, westward; took him to Rome, even to Spain, 
to the bounds of the Empire, to plant there the banner 
of his beloved Lord. Soon he saw clear signs that God 
was so guiding him. They started by land up through 
the northern highlands, out through the dark defiles 
of the Cilician gates, that great frowning pass, eighty 
miles long. Then westward for days along the moun- 
tain road, till he touched the region of his first missionary 
journey. One evening from the heights he looked down 
on Derbe and rejoiced that he was to meet the old 
friends again. Next day along the mountain road to 
Lystra, where Barnabas and he had been Jupiter and 
Mercury, and where Barnabas had lifted him up for 
dead after the mob had stoned him. Everything would 
remind him of Barnabas. 

I can easily picture these visits. Last year with 
the Bishop of Montreal I called on Archbishop Ger- 
manos of the Syrian Church, who was visiting his 
churches in Canada and the United States. In a street 
off Notre Dame I found him staying with one of his 
Syrian people. He was sitting in his black robes with 
his presbyters beside him, and his people were crowd- 



n THE MASTER BUILDER 

ing in to greet him and to consult him. It was a pic- 
ture from the unchanging East. 

It was just Paul over again. I see him come in to 
Lystra and the converts crowd around him delighted to 
see him, and I am sure the first question is, Where is 
Barnabas? And the next is, Have you recovered from 
the effects of the stoning? And so they talk together 
in affectionate intercourse, and Silas is introduced, and 
at night the presbyters bring their difficulties to be 
solved, and are taught still further of the Gospel of 
Christ, for they do not know very much, these presby- 
ters, and there are no written Gospels as yet to teach 
them. 

Amongst the visitors that day was probably young 
Timothy, who lived with his mother and grandmother 
on the Iconium road. Paul seems to have known him 
at his previous visit. He had probably been present 
when Paul was stoned. He must have been a very 
attractive lad, for the older man was greatly drawn to 
him. 

From all the disciples at Lystra he singled him out: 
"Him Paul would have go forth with him." He was 
a lonely man with a tender, affectionate heart, and it 
would be delightful to have with him and to have the 
training of this youth who seemed to love him already, 
and who might be to him in his old age his son in the 
Gospel. 

So he inquires of the presbyters and friends, " What 
do you think of Timothy? Is he a man to make a 
presbyter? Is he a man to take with me? " And they 
reply, " He is well reported of by the brethren at 
Iconium. ,, So he directs him to be circumcised, since 
his mother is a Jewess. He arranges for his ordina- 



SECOND MISSIONARY TOUR 73 

tion, since he will have to administer the sacraments. 
Perhaps at Lystra or at Iconium the following Sunday 
that solemn ordination took place. Many years 
afterwards toward the close of his life he writes to 
Timothy, who had become to him all or more than he 
had ever hoped, and who at that time was himself 
a Bishop of the Church: " I thank God for thee my 
son Timothy, unceasing is my remembrance of thee in 
my prayers. Night and day I am longing to see thee. 
I remember the faith of thy grandmother Lois and thy 
mother Eunice. Stir up the gift of God that is in thee 
through the laying on of my hands, together with 
the hands of the presbytery." l " You know what I 
suffered in Lystra." 



But Paul cannot delay with his friends at Lystra. 
A higher Power is compelling him westward — ever 
westward. St. Luke has so set his eyes on the western 
goal that he will not take time to tell what happened 
on the way. " They went through Galatia," he says. 
Evidently Paul meant to go through without stopping. 
The historian does not tell that there came on him a 
sudden, sharp attack, probably of that old malady — 
that loathsome " thorn in the flesh " which he refers 
to in his letters, which so prostrated and humiliated 
him whenever it occurred. It is generally believed 
to be a disfiguring affection of the eyes, accompanied 
with horrible pain like a stake driven through the 
flesh. 

We only know of this stay of Paul amongst the 
Galatians through a letter which he wrote them after- 

1 1 Tim. i: 14; 2 Tim. i: 6. 



74 THE MASTER BUILDER 

ward. It is a stern letter of rebuke for their fickle- 
ness, and in it he affectionately recalls this first visit 
and their loving reception of the poor, sick stranger 
in a strange land : " Ye did not despise me or loathe 
me in my humiliating malady. Ye listened to my 
teaching on my sick bed as if I were an angel of God. 
I bear you witness that ye would have plucked out 
your own eyes and given them to me if it would do me 
any good. Why have ye changed? 0, foolish Gala- 
tians, who hath bewitched you, that ye have so soon 
turned aside." It is a most interesting sidelight, 
showing the intense earnestness of a man in the misery 
of his sickness telling these wild Galatian tribes the 
glorious news about Jesus. 

By the way, these Galatians ought to be the most 
interesting to us of all Paul's converts. They are the 
nearest race to ourselves of all whom Paul had met. 
The others are Greeks and Romans, and Jews and East- 
ern tribes. These are the people whose kinsmen we 
know. Galatians is the Greek name for Gauls. The 
Greeks called the inhabitants of western France, 
Galatians. The Romans called them Gauls. Their 
old name is Celts. They are the Celtic people who 
inhabited France and Ireland. The Epistle to the 
Galatians is the Epistle to the Gauls — to the kindred 
of the wild Irish in the ancient world. And Paul 
found in them the same characteristics, the same lov- 
ing, affectionate hearts for the sick stranger in trouble, 
the same impetuous nature, the same fickleness which 
he rebukes, the fighting and devouring which he bids 
them avoid. Fighting is in the very nature of the Celt. 
To Irish and other Celts to-day it should be inter- 
esting to find their ancient kinsmen nursing St. Paul. 



SECOND MISSIONARY TOUR 75 

I hope it will make them read the Epistle to the 
Galatians. 

VI 

Now the missionaries have left Galatia. They 
are moving on westward — westward. Their route 
on the map is almost a straight line toward the sun- 
set. Something is impelling them. Something hap- 
pens to stop them at every turn from the path, " We 
assayed to go into Mysia, but the spirit of Jesus suf- 
fered us not. We were forbidden of the Holy Ghost 
to preach the word in Asia." On, on, ever on, toward 
the West. 

At last from the hilltops they catch sight of the 
sea, and across it the dim outlines of the mountains 
of Europe. But Paul, and Silas, and Timothy are 
looking on what was much more exciting to the world 
of their day. They are looking down upon the Plain 
of Troas. Surely Paul as a Roman citizen was stirred 
at the sight. Surely young Timothy knew of its roman- 
tic associations. For — do you know where we are? 
We are on the Plains of Troy, the land sung by Homer 
and Virgil, the cradle of the Roman race, the dream- 
land of chivalry and romance to the ancient world. 
To this day schoolboys everywhere study the classic 
tale of Priam and Agamemnon, and Helen of Troy, 
and Achilles dragging dead Hector around the walls. 

There is no reference here to these classic glories. 
I do not think Paul was excited about them as we should 
be. Put yourself in his place. If you were a courier 
hurrying back from Belgium with the news that Ger- 
many had surrendered, and that the liberty of Europe 
was saved, you would hardly spend a day sentimental- 



76 THE MASTER BUILDER 

izing on the field of Waterloo. Paul was God's 
courier, with exciting tidings all fresh and new that 
the son of God had come; that there was forgiveness 
of sins; that death was only birth into a fuller life; 
that humanity was having a splendid new start. 

It was all new and fresh and exciting. The poor 
old world was in sore need of it. Paul could not 
spend much thought on the glories of Troy. 

VII 

Here in Troy came another of the close friendships 
of Paul's life. There was a young physician, prob- 
ably practising in Troas. Perhaps he came to attend 
Paul, not yet recovered from his Galatian illness. He 
was a man of literary taste; he had probably known 
Paul before. At any rate, he was to know him well 
in the future. He became to him his friend and com- 
panion, his physician in illness, the biographer to whom 
we owe the story of his life: "Luke, the beloved 
physician," he calls him, and in the loneliness and 
depression of the days before his death, when all others 
had forsaken him, he writes, " only Luke is with me." 

Think what it meant to the world this acquaintance 
with Paul. St. Luke's name has become a household 
word through all the world, through all the ages. 
But not as a physician. 

Through his acquaintance with Paul, God called 
him to a greater, wider work — to give to the world the 
Acts of the Apostles and the precious Gospel of St. 
Luke. 

How do we know that Luke met Paul at Troas? 
Because in his history he changes for the first time 
from the third to the first person. If you are reading 



SECOND MISSIONARY TOUR 77 

the Acts carefully you will find in certain sections 
" we " instead of " they." Where this occurs we may 
assume that St. Luke was present. 

VIII 

We are now in the theatre of the present war. The 
men who are fighting around Gallipoli, the allied 
troops encamped at Salonika, to which afterwards 
came the Epistles to the Thessalonians, should be 
interested in this part of the story of St. Paul. They 
are standing where Paul stood 1900 years earlier. 
They, too, are standing there for the helping of the 
world, for the honour of Christ. 

Now comes a point in the story of vital interest 
to ourselves. One evening Paul stood at sunset 
on the confines of Asia at Troy looking out at the dim 
mountains of Europe across the sea, and when dark- 
ness came — in the visions of the night he learned the 
meaning of that impulse that was urging him west- 
ward. The meaning was Europe. In Europe was 
to be planted the banner of the Cross. A vision ap- 
peared to Paul in the night — a man of Macedonia 
beseeching him and saying, " Come over and help us. 
And straightway we concluded that God had called 
us to preach the good news unto them. Straight- 
way we sought to go forth." In the morning round 
the shipping in the harbour were the newly arrived 
travellers seeking a passage. " Setting sail from 
Troas we made a straight course to Samothrace, and 
next day to Neapolis, and from thence to Philippi." 

Thus came the Gospel to Europe. 



CHAPTER VIII 

How the Gospel Came to Europe 

That was a great day in the history of the world 
when Paul and his comrades first set foot on the shores 
of Europe and laid the foundations of the Kingdom of 
God amongst the progressive and influential peoples 
of the West. 

It seemed but a very ordinary day in the bustling 
harbour of Neapolis, where amid the clanking of chains 
and the shouts of hurrying porters unlading the ships, 
four poor missionaries landed unnoticed and alone 
and wended their way to the city to look for lodgings. 

From the quayside we climb the hill road with them, 
and with them pause to look down on another scene 
of chivalry and romance. We are still on historic 
ground. Straight from Troy we have come, to the 
plains of Philippi, which, after Troy itself, would in 
the days of Paul most stir the pulses of any citizen 
of the Empire seeing it for the first time. You remem- 
ber how Shakespeare in "Julius Caesar " has immortal- 
ized those plains of Philippi. 

Paul and his comrades are looking on the scene 
where Brutus and Cassius fought with Marc Antony 
for the liberty of the world 90 years before. Here 
is the marsh where Antony crossed. Here is the 
camp ground of Brutus and Cassius. Here on the 
hill Cassius died. There Brutus fell on his sword 

78 



HOW THE GOSPEL CAME TO EUROPE 79 

when the fight for freedom was lost. One wonders 
if Paul and his comrades realized that day on the field 
where the fight for freedom was lost that they were 
taking up the fight where Brutus left it, that they 
with their simple story of Christ were to do more for 
the world's freedom than all the warriors of the past. 

ii 

It is Sabbath morning in Philippi. The Missiona- 
ries are looking for a synagogue to worship in. There 
is no synagogue. By the Rabbinical law unless there 
were sufficient wise men to form a court there could 
be no synagogue. But where they could not have a 
synagogue they must have a little prayer place of some 
kind. For the wise Rabbis knew what we are learn- 
ing to our cost, how the neglect of public worship leads 
to practical atheism. 

Therefore, Paul expected to find some place of 
prayer, and they found it in the Jewish quarter down 
by the river. When they looked in they found a 
congregation of women only. Their men had stayed 
at home. Which custom is not peculiar to Philippi. 

So they came and taught these women their story 
of Jesus. Some people think that a congregation 
of men is much more important to preach to than one 
of women. One would like to know why — except 
perhaps that they need it more. These few women 
may not seem very important, but their attitude 
made them important. They did not know much, 
but they knew that they wanted God, and whoso- 
ever knows that is very near to knowing more. To 
whom more fitly than to praying women could the 
gospel of Jesus come, especially in that old world 



80 THE MASTER BUILDER 

so cruel to women where Jesus would be the more 
needed ? 

Chief amongst them was Lydia, a seller of purple 
robes from Thyatira, whose heart the Lord opened as 
she gave attention to the things spoken by Paul. 
Don't you think she deserved it — because she gave 
attention — because she was there at all. 

This was not Jerusalem where the Sabbath was 
observed. There was no Sabbath in Philippi. It 
was a heathen city. The shops and bazaars were in 
full swing. The rival sellers of purple were making 
their gains. Lydia thought it worth while to lose 
something in order to worship God, and so she won 
the blessing of being the first Christian in Europe, 
and probably had something to do with the founding of 
the Church in her native town, which you read of in 
the Epistles to the Seven Churches. " To the angel 
of the Church in Thyatira write." 

So when the gospel of Jesus came to Europe, it 
came first to women because the men were not there. 

This is a story for women. One likes to get a glimpse 
of women in their relation to Jesus. Women were the 
last at His cross when He died. Women were the first 
at His sepulchre when He rose, and in all the stories 
of bigotry, and hatred and desertion in the gospels 
there is none of women hostile to Jesus nor of any 
woman deserting Him. Here women are the first mem- 
bers of his Church in Europe, and in all the ages since 
they have been the centre and heart of it. The men 
of Europe have talked and preached and stood more in 
the limelight, but it is the woman in the home, teaching 
her little child, that has made the Christianity of 
Europe. 



HOW THE GOSPEL CAME TO EUROPE 81 



in 

Some months later there is another woman in the 
story. A poor, half-crazy slave girl, a spiritualist 
medium in touch with unseen mysteries. The Greek 
poets of that time describe such women. She is in 
touch with the spirit world. The spirits which touch 
her are evil, but they give her second sight. She can 
tell fortunes, and "she brought her masters much gain 
by soothsaying." Her uncanny knowledge has taught 
her too much. Day by day wherever they go she 
follows Paul and Silas with her crazy cry, "These men 
are the servants of the Most High God, these men are 
the servants of the Most High God," till at last Paul 
grieved for the poor girl, and annoyed by her impor- 
tunity, cast out the evil spirit in the name of Christ. 
"And her masters saw that the hope of their gains 
were gone." 

Thus came the first assault from the heathen. 
Paul's enemies up to this had always been Jews. The 
Jews attacked him when he touched their religion; 
the heathen when he touched their pockets. 

Next morning Paul is up with Silas before the court, 
listening to the prosecutor's charge. "These men are 
Jews; they are disturbing the city; they are upsetting 
religion; they are teaching things not lawful for us 
being Romans." The magistrates make short work of 
the case, "Strip them, flog them, put them in the 
dungeon." "How we were shamefully entreated at 
Philippi," he writes in later years. That is Europe's 
way of thanking Paul for his gospel. 

It was a pretty cruel world in which he lived his 
outer life, but it was a glorious world in which his 



82 THE MASTER BUILDER 

spirit lived in the practice of the presence of God. 
"He endured as seeing Him who is invisible." 

There are in the loud stunning tide 

Of this world's care and crime, 
With whom the melodies abide 

Of the everlasting chime. 
Who carry music in their heart , 

Through dusky lane and wrangling mart, 
Who ply their daily task with busier feet 

Because their secret souls a holier strain repeat. 

IV 

Such was Paul. That is what made him a hero. 
We are proud to-day of the dashing heroism that rushes 
fearlessly to the cannon's mouth, but there is higher 
heroism in many lives which never get a V. C. or a 
D. S. O. Look at this poor little sick Jew who "cut 
out the hero stuff" and took it all in the day's work. 
Weak, sensitive, highly strung, he is tied to the whip- 
ping-post and the white flesh flogged to ribbons on his 
back. He is flung into the stench of the inner dun- 
geon. He never whines about such things. He has 
too much to be glad about. Look at his whole life — 
disappointed, persecuted, deserted, misunderstood — and 
then hear the continual refrain of his letters — " Rejoice 
in the Lord" — "Rejoicing in tribulation" — "Our light 
affliction is but for a moment." "I have learned," he 
writes to these people of Philippi, "in whatsoever state 
I am therein to be content." 

That religion of Christ is worth something if it 
makes heroes like that. And it is no unreasoning 
fanaticism that makes him brave and cheery. It is 
simple common sense. "What matter if men oppress 
me? God is beside me. What matter if my preach- 



HOW THE GOSPEL CAME TO EUROPE 83 

ing fails this time ? God will win out some day. What 
matter if they put me to death ? It is but to depart 
and be with Christ, which is far better." 

The world cannot conquer that sort of man. It 
cannot even make him very greatly unhappy. "This 
is the victory that overcometh the world even our 
faith." 

At midnight they were singing hymns unto the Lord, 
the beautiful old Psalms learned in their childhood, 
"Praise the Lord O my Soul." "The Lord hears the 
mourning of those in captivity." 

"And the prisoners were listening." Yes, and the 
jailer too. It was a new experience to hear the pris- 
oners, instead of howling, singing songs of praise. 

I could not do it. Perhaps you could not do it. 
But you can imagine men of Paul's type, who could 
see what life really means to every poor servant of 
Christ, a life only begun on earth, a life of splendid 
values, of ages of progress, a life that leaves you young 
when you are older than Methuselah, a life of eternal 
joyous service in the presence of the Lord. You can 
imagine such a man looking at his troubles as we look 
on the little child crying over her broken doll. One 
day we too shall see it that way. 



Towards morning came the earthquake shock and 
the shaking of the prison and the jailer rushing in to 
commit suicide, believing that his prisoners had fled. 
He finds Paul and Silas calmly waiting, and one can 
understand the man's feelings. He knew something 
already of these men who were proclaiming some 
wonderful good news, some extraordinary way of sal- 



84 THE MASTER BUILDER 

vation. He has seen them flogged yesterday for their 
teaching. He has heard them singing their doxologies 
in the night. And there comes on him the awe of the 
supernatural — the admiration of a brave man for their 
courage and calmness, the wonder at the curious secret 
power in their lives. He would like to know the inner 
meaning of it all. He has little belief in his gods. He 
has little to comfort him in the troubles of his life. 
From the depths of his poor soul the question is forced, 
"Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Is there any way 
in which I could be a man such as you? " 

"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt 
be saved. And the man believed and his whole house. " 

Of course, it does not mean that Paul said no more 
— that an ignorant pagan became Christian in a mo- 
ment. Paul was not the sort of man to baptize ignorant 
people. He settled down to teach the man and his 
family, the love of God, the story of Christ, the call of 
a holy life — the strength of the Holy Ghost through 
prayer and sacraments. It was an interesting sight as 
the light fell on the prison walls and the staring criminals 
and the blood drying on the apostle's back as he post- 
poned all thought of comfort and relief in his eagerness 
to win a poor heathen soul. Surely it made a close tie 
between them for ever. I like to think of the pleasure 
to Paul in meeting that friend whenever he revisited 
Philippi. When I read the Epistle to the Philippians, 
I like to think of the jailer in church listening to that 
letter of his friend, the first Sunday after it arrived. 

VI 

Let us not pass over the jailer's question and its 
answer. It is hard to guess how much that poor 



HOW THE GOSPEL CAME TO EUROPE 85 

ignorant pagan meant. At any rate he saw the vast 
difference between his own poor, struggling, dreary life 
and that of those bright, cheery souls who seemed in 
such friendly intercourse with their gods that they were 
always happy, who for some secret joy that was set 
before them made light of flogging and imprisonment 
and danger and death. "If I could get to be like them I 
If I could learn their secret! What must I do?" 

Perhaps he expected Paul to say you must be good. 
You must conquer this sin and that, you must acquire 
this virtue and that. Paul meant him to do all this — 
but he did not put it that way. "Believe on the Lord 
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Join the ranks 
of my dear Lord, the Lord of Heaven and earth. Put 
yourself in His hands as I have done and He will do all 
for you. Offer yourself to Him — let me baptize you 
into His name — and all the comfort and peace and joy 
and strength that you see in us will come to you too, 
and you shall be as we are." 

And that poor jailer risked it in simple faith — and 
Jesus confirmed the promise of His servant — and the 
new beautiful life began. No wonder with results such 
as that around him that Paul felt it worth while to 
suffer for his gospel. 

And the Church has gone on ever since with just 
that same simple gospel. And all through the ages 
men have been testing its truth. In days of dissatis- 
faction and aspiration after better things they have 
asked, What must I do to be saved from my sins, to 
become pure and noble and generous and true, to be 
happy in this life and hopeful for the next? And the 
Church has replied, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ 
— give yourself to Lord Jesus. And they have tried it 



86 THE MASTER BUILDER 

as the jailer of Philippi tried it. And the answer has 
come. 

VII 

Next day Paul and Silas were banished from Philippi 
and had to leave their new friends and new-made con- 
verts. It was a great comfort that they were able to 
leave Luke with them. We are not definitely told that 
they did. But at this point the narrative which has 
been using the first person "we" — again changes to 
"they" — tells only of Paul and Silas going. So we 
infer that Luke remained behind to watch over that 
infant community and perhaps, too, in his spare time 
elaborate his notes for his Gospel or for the Acts. 

If there were many converts like Lydia and the 
jailer, religion must have been very real in that little 
church of Philippi. And apparently it was so. Ten 
years afterwards Paul writes from a Roman prison his 
Epistle to the Philippians, the most delightful reading 
of all his epistles, and from it we learn much. For 
some reason these Philippians seem nearest to his heart; 
they are the only people to whom he writes no reproofs 
and the only people whom he allowed to minister to 
him in his necessities. With all others he kept his 
proud position of earning his own living and refusing 
all gifts of money. 

Evidently in all his troubles Paul had the comfort 
of very close personal friendships amongst his converts, 
and especially it would seem in Philippi. Most clergy 
know that one of the pleasantest things in their minis- 
try is the kindly friendship of their people, even when 
they very little deserve it. 

But what is especially noticeable in the epistle is 



HOW THE GOSPEL CAME TO EUROPE 87 

the close personal relation to Our Lord, both of Paul 
and his converts, and as a consequence the joyous tone 
of the whole letter. One sees that the Christian life 
to them was such a tender, personal relation to the Lord 
Jesus. He was no dead teacher of noble doctrines. 
He was the ever-present close personal friend, the living, 
loving Lord for whom they were glad to suffer and would 
be glad to die. Christianity was a very real thing in 
the teaching of Paul. 



CHAPTER IX 
In Athens 

Recently the papers have been busy with Salonika, 
where some of the lads dear to ourselves are taking 
part to-day in holding that difficult position. You 
have seen the pictures of it in the war illustrations, 
the beautiful old town nestling deep in the mountains 
by the sea, with its strong fortifications on the hill 
behind. It would be interesting to give this lecture 
to the British gunners to-day if I could show them 
the path right between their guns where Paul and Silas, 
sore from the flogging at Philippi, came down that 
summer morning long ago into the town. It was then 
called Thessalonica, and to its people afterwards came 
the very first words of the New Testament ever written, 
Paul's Epistles to the Thessalonians. 

Do you imagine he began by brilliant spectacular 
preaching? Nay. The first thing was to look for 
lodgings and the next to look for work in some tent- 
maker's shop to cover the expenses of support and 
travelling. It is only as I look closely into his life that 
I realize what a hero Paul was. In the keen strain of 
clerical life I wonder how long I should stand it if I 
had to sit up at night to cut and stitch tentcloth to 
earn my breakfast — if I had a chronic disease — if I 
was persecuted and disliked — and if I varied the 
monotony by getting stoned or flogged once a year. I 
might do it for the sake of some one whom I greatly 

88 



IN ATHENS 89 

loved. It helps me to see how much a man can do who 
is intensely in earnest. It helps me to estimate how 
deep was this man's love to the Lord who had been so 
good to him on the Damascus road. Those months of 
study are helping me to appreciate and admire Paul as 
I never did before. 

II 

As his custom was everywhere, he began his teach- 
ing in the Jewish Synagogue, where he and his audience 
had their Bible, the Old Testament as common ground. 
Here he argues from the Scriptures that their idea of 
a Messiah, glorious in temporal power, was an error — 
"opening and alleging that it behoved the Christ to 
suffer and to rise again from the dead and that this 
Jesus whom I proclaim unto you is the promised 
Messiah." It was the very line that Jesus took with 
the disciples at Emmaus on Easter day. "Ought not 
the Christ to have suffered these things and entered 
into his glory? And thus He interpreted to them in 
all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." 

It was a hard proposition for Jews. For ages the 
national hope had been fed on glowing pictures of 
Messiah and his brilliant reign, ignoring all the hints 
of suffering and humiliation, how he should bear our 
griefs and carry our sorrows. Indeed it is only through 
the life of Christ and the teaching of the Apostles that 
that side of the picture has come out into prominence. 

" And some were persuaded " — and some were 
not. It is so in all preaching and depends largely on 
the attitude of the hearers towards the right. Even 
Paul could not make some men care. I notice that 
the believers were chiefly Greek proselytes who were 



90 THE MASTER BUILDER 

admitted to the synagogues as a sort of inferior 
outer circle. And you can see why. The Jews had a 
great religion already. The poor Greeks had nothing 
but the fables about gods in whom they had lost belief, 
and who could never be any help to an earnest soul. 
If Paul's gospel were true — if God were really in close 
touch with men, as Paul said He was, it was delight- 
ful news for them in their sore need of Him. 

Then came the old trouble. The unbelieving Jews 
stirred up the rabble, the loafers, and idlers, the lewd 
fellows of the baser sort. The mob was in a riot. Paul 
could not show his face in the streets. After about 
two months he had to go. 

One would expect the little church to die out now 
when its great leaders are gone. Far from it. Here 
we see the innate power of the Gospel as Christ pre- 
dicted. " Like seed," he says " sown in the ground." 
Like seed. For the seed has in it a hidden life, you 
cannot hold it back. It must grow. Throw a hand- 
ful of seeds on the ground and neglect them. They 
will grow. Throw a few acorns, pile up rocks to keep 
them down, they will force up their way and wedge 
open the rocks. You cannot hold down a seed with 
the life germ in it. So Paul's little group of converts 
by the power of the Holy Spirit grew and flourished 
and rejoiced in the Lord. They would seem even to 
have spread the gospel in the districts around. The 
best modern parallel I know is that of the poor heathen 
of Uganda in Africa whose bishop has told us how they 
started little missionary bands to carry God's good 
news to the heathen around them. 

The Thessalonians show the quickest growth of 
any church we know. Only a couple of months later 



IN ATHENS 91 

Paul wrote his first epistle to them in great delight. 
Two months ago they were degraded idolators, he says, 
who turned from idols to serve the living God. Now 
already " the word of the Lord hath sounded forth 
from you in Macedonia and Achaia. In every place 
your faith towards God has gone forth." 

Let us believe more in the power of that living 
seed. Let us put more heart and hope into our mis- 
sionary efforts, for we are sowing the seed of eternal life 
and nothing can stop it. It has the life in itself. 

ill 

I just notice, in passing, his next station, Berea, 
because it is the only place where the whole synagogue 
of the Jews gave him a fair hearing. They were not 
bigots like the other Jews; and like many of our- 
selves. They were fair, honest men who could listen 
with open mind. That is all God wants for His truth. 
Not blind credulity, but the honest heart that will 
listen fairly. So the Bereans have come down to us 
in history with a fine reputation. " These were more 
noble than those of Thessalonica for they heard the 
word with all readiness of mind and searched the 
Scriptures whether these things were so." They 
searched the Scriptures, " therefore many of them 
believed." 

We have little more to tell of them. For the bigots 
of Thessalonica found out where Paul was and soon 
Berea became too hot to hold him. Paul was the chief 
object of their pursuit. If they could get rid of him, 
the others did not matter much. Paul was not very 
good at taking care of himself. I think he was sick 
again. The kindly Bereans had to carry him off to 



92 THE MASTER BUILDER 

the sea and put him on board a ship of the Athens 
line, but he left Silas and Timothy at Berea to set the 
little church on its feet, as he had previously left Luke 
at Philippi. For Paul was not a mere wandering 
preacher, he was an Apostle and Bishop founding the 
church. He had to leave everywhere the nucleus of 
a church with its ordained ministry and sacraments. 
I am the more convinced that he must have been 
sick, for they not only carried him off to the ship, but in 
the kindness of their hearts they would not let their 
poor nerve-racked friend go on alone. They went with 
him and looked after him on the way to Athens and 
came back with the ship on its return voyage. 

IV 

Nothing like a sea voyage for a man sick and tired. 
For three days he is sailing by that lovely coast amid 
scenes vivid with heroic memories. Poetry and history 
and romance are on every side. Olympus and Mara- 
thon and the pass of Thermopylae where the Spar- 
tans died. And the soft sea breezes are around him 
bringing God's healing power to body and spirit till 
on the third morning the clouds on the far horizon 
began to take on substance. He makes out head- 
lands and cliffs and then the sun brightens on the 
distant fairyland of white towers and spires like a 
delicate lacework against the blue. That is Athens! 
Famous, glorious, beautiful Athens, the world-centre 
of knowledge and beauty and art. 

But that is only our point of view. We should be 
enthusiastic over Athens. Paul would not. His He- 
brew ideal was not beauty and art but Righteousness. 
He would value more a sweating slave boy who loved 



IN ATHENS 93 

the Lord than a whole university of artists and philos- 
ophers. Some would call this fanaticism. It depends 
on their viewpoint. His passionate missionary zeal 
seems fanaticism to men who care only for money- 
making. His longing after God and his deep sense of 
sin seem fanaticism to the careless crowd. It depends 
on one's viewpoint. At any rate, like many men 
who have accomplished great things for the world, 
he was a man of one persistent idea. 

He would feel quite lonely amongst these cultured 
pagans with no Christian soul to talk with him about 
Jesus. He writes touchingly to Thessalonica, " I 
was left in Athens alone" He directs his Berean 
friends as they bid him good-bye, " Tell Silas and 
Timothy to come to me as soon as they can." A 
strange city is a lonely place anyway, A strange 
pagan city is especially lonely for Paul. 



I see him next day wandering lonely through that 
lovely city, wondering at its glorious sights, its stately 
civic buildings, its splendid temples of Juno and 
Ceres, and Apollo and Minerva, the multitude of ex- 
quisite statues of the gods in gold and silver and white 
marble. Every street corner has its deity, every in- 
stitution has its patron god. One heathen writer 
tells us that Athens was swarming with statues — 
another says satirically that it was easier to find gods 
there than men. If the outward appearance repre- 
sented inward realities, Athens should be the most 
religious city in the world. 

But, alas, Paul knew that they represented no 
realities except the shameful realities of impurity and 



94 THE MASTER BUILDER 

insincerity. Once in early virile days the Greeks were 
men of purpose. They believed in the supernatural. 
They believed in the gods and in the strength of that 
belief they did heroic deeds which the world will not 
easily forget. 

Now they had lost their faith. The beautiful gods 
of Olympus were but heroes of fable. Their worship 
was but a screen for lust and rottenness. Life was 
beautiful, bright, sparkling, on the surface. But it 
was utterly hollow. The human soul made in the 
likeness of God could not get satisfaction out of beauty 
alone. The day of sorrow came to them and there 
was no comfort. The day of death came and they had 
no hope. In art and culture they were first of the 
nations. If it were possible for human wisdom alone 
to find out God, Athens must have found him. But, 
alas, as Paul writes later to the Romans " the world 
by wisdom found not God." For it is through spiritual 
aspiration, not through intellectual knowledge, that 
men find the Father. 

To a cultured tourist Athens of that day would be 
a dream of beauty and delight. But Paul was not 
enjoying it. " His spirit was stirred within him as 
he saw the city crowded with idols." " The ugly little 
Jew," says Renan, " had no taste for beauty." That 
may be. But that is not the explanation. That 
ugly little Jew stood on a higher plane. His eyes 
were on God and Righteousness, and the love of Christ, 
and the strength to conquer sin, and the glory of the 
life eternal. So he looked on these proud people, 
not with envy or admiration, but with heartfelt 
pity. Vanity of vanities. They had missed the 
Highest. 



IN ATHENS 95 

And the saddest thing was that they were not sad 
about it at all. People can get accustomed to doing 
without God. In our own city as well as in Athens, 
there are many who seem to get on very well without 
Him, except in their better moments, when Conscience 
stirs, when vague aspirations after better things come, 
when bereavement and sorrow and dissatisfaction 
with life, bring blind longing for something they hardly 
know what. At other times — and that is the tragedy 
of it — they do not miss God at all. That is the 
tragedy. " Thou sayest I am rich, I have need of 
nothing, and knowest not that thou art poor and miser- 
able and blind and naked." The Athenians would 
be amused at the pity of that ugly little Jew, But 
the ugly little Jew was right. 

VI 

Wondering amongst this profusion of images, with 
his spirit stirred within him at a whole city given to 
idolatry, I see him suddenly pause. I see his attention 
caught. It is a white statue at a street corner with 
this inscription Agnosto Theo, " To God unknown." 
Why does that arrest him? For this reason I think 
if we may judge from the use he made of it later in 
his speech, that his broad sympathies read in it an 
expression of the craving of the heathen world for some- 
thing higher and better than they knew, a blind " grop- 
ing after God, if haply they might find Him who in 
truth is not far away from every one of us." The 
early legends of many races bear witness to this crav- 
ing — from that Arabian idolator before Mahomet's 
day, repeating his poor prayer, " God, if I knew how 
thou wishest to be served, I would serve thee, but, 



96 THE MASTER BUILDER 

alas, I know not," to the prayer to the blue sky in the 
ancient books of India. 

When we tremble like the cloud driven by the wind, 
When we commit an offence through forgetting the Right, 
Have mercy, Varuna, have mercy. 

These were cries to the unknown God. It was some 
comfort to Paul in the midst of his despondency, 
" They have cravings for something beyond what they 
know. I can at any rate tell them about the unknown 
God." 

VII 

So he made it his custom to sit in the stately central 
square, where the gay idlers met and chatted and gos- 
siped in the afternoon. They were a gay, frivolous, 
gossiping crowd. Demosthenes had charged their 
ancestors fiercely, " Instead of guarding your liberties, 
you are for ever gadding about and looking for news." 
The Bible story tells us that " they spent their time 
in nothing else but to tell or to hear some new thing." 
So they soon got to talking with the ugly Jew. I 
don't think he was an easy man to talk to, but in 
this case he wanted to talk, and anybody could get 
on with these pleasant, courteous Athenians. So 
Paul talked with them as Socrates four hundred 
years earlier had talked about the unknown God. 
He had three or four weeks of this intercourse, and I 
cannot help thinking that it accomplished far more 
than his famous later speech before the Areopagus. 

Soon the philosophers were introduced to him. 
Philsophers were thoughtful men, guessing at the riddle 
of the universe, and from their conclusions forming 



IN ATHENS 97 

rules of life. They professed to be seekers after truth, 
and no man can be that without helping towards Right- 
eousness. But, of course, their practice often fell 
below their professions. The two schools here men- 
tioned are the Epicureans and Stoics. The Epicu- 
reans taught that the world was made by chance. 
The gods were not troubling themselves about men. 
Therefore, men need not trouble about them. Happi- 
ness is the chief end of man. Therefore, seek happi- 
ness. In theory they would say seek other men's 
happiness too. But in degraded days it read: " Seek 
your own happiness. You will be a short time alive, 
you will be a long time dead. Let us eat and drink, 
for to-morrow we die." 

The Stoic had a nobler teaching. Seek virtue. 
Listen to the voice of conscience. Probably there is 
some great Being behind that voice. Nobody knows. 
But even if not, you should follow the inner voice. 
Take life calmly. Do not get excited over it. Bear 
its ills silently with dignity. If they get too bad you 
can always get out by suicide. With the exception of 
the suicide the Stoics had a very noble philosophy of 
life. But of course they also were not as good as their 
creed. 

I do not suppose Paul took much interest in their 
creeds. He was too greatly in earnest about his won- 
derful gospel. So they were puzzled. Some said he 
was a mere babbler. Others that he was a setter forth 
of strange gods because he talked of Jesus and the 
Resurrection. At any rate, he had something to say 
which they had not heard before and they thought his 
teaching of sufficient importance to be submitted to 
public enquiry. 



98 THE MASTER BUILDER 



VIII 



It is the court day of the Areopagus, the Senate 
which had charge of matters connected with the State 
religion. On the hill of Mars beneath the open sky, 
the councillors are assembled — grave seniors, men of 
distinction in the nation. Four hundred years before 
on that same hill the Council had met to judge the 
greatest of all their thinkers. He was charged with 
disparaging the gods and bidding men turn to the guid- 
ing voice within. And for that Socrates had to drink 
the hemlock poison. Now they have Paul on a sim- 
ilar charge. But Paul will not have to drink hemlock 
poison. The Athenians do not take religion so seriously 
now. They are just politely interested. " May we know 
what this new teaching is?" It does not read as if they 
cared very much. But Paul cared. It was the chance 
of his life for bringing his message before the cultured 
scholars and leaders of Greece. He never had an 
audience like that before and never would again. 
You may be sure he prepared his speech carefully. 
You may be sure he prayed hard for the help of the 
Holy Ghost. 

Read the speech over carefully. Let me first offer 
these preliminary remarks : 

(i) Notice how different his sermons to Jews and 
pagans. With the one he appeals to the Word of God. 
With the other to the works of God in nature around. 

(2) The speech you have here could be said in two 
minutes, so that evidently it is only a brief summary— 
perhaps Paul's notes of the speech which he handed 
to Luke. 

(3) The important part was never delivered. Just 



IN ATHENS 99 

as he was leading up to his teaching about Christ the 
audience contemptuously broke up the meeting. 

(4) Our version uses an unfortunate word at the 
opening. "Men of Athens, I perceive that you are 
too superstitious. " Paul would never have said that. 
Not only would it be discourteous, but it would preju- 
dice his whole speech. The Greek word means re- 
ligious, devoted to the worship of gods. He used it 
as a complimentary introduction. 

IX 

Now hear the speech. Put yourselves in their place. 
I am Paul. You are the learned and dignified assembly 
before whom I plead — not for myself but for my dear 
Lord. Above us is the open sky. Around us are the 
glorious temples and the beautiful images gleaming in 
white marble, and silver and gold. Let me expand 
the speech as I think he did. 

"O Athenians, I perceive that you are a very re- 
ligious people, devoted to the worship of your gods. 
You charge me with introducing strange gods. Nay. 
For as I studied the object of your worship through the 
city, I came on an altar with this inscription 'To the 
God unknown.' That unknown God whom you wor- 
ship, not knowing Him, Him declare I unto you. That 
unknown God has revealed Himself. He is the one 
God over all gods who made the world and all things 
therein. He being Lord of the Earth dwelleth not in 
temples made with hands as you represent Him. He 
fills this glorious world around you and all the worlds. 
It is He who giveth to all life and breath and all things. 
He has made all the nations and appointed the bounds 
of their habitations. He has placed them for his gra- 



100 THE MASTER BUILDER 

cious purpose that they should seek God if happily 
they might find Him who in truth is not far from any 
of us. Deep in your hearts you know this is true. 
Your own poets confess it. 'We are also His offspring.' " 

Up to this, the audience are entirely with him. It 
is a fine speech and appeals to them. 

"Forasmuch as He is so great and we are His 
children, we ought not to belittle Him, we ought not 
to think that the Godhead is like unto these images 
of gold, silver, and stone, graven by art and men's 
device. Those small thoughts were allowable in the 
child races of the world. We are beyond that now. 
The times of the old ignorance God overlooked. But 
the end of it has come. The race is to rise. Old things 
are passed away. God has revealed Himself. And 
now He commandeth every man to repent and turn to 
Him. For He has revealed Himself, by Him whom 
He hath ordained who shall one day judge the world. 
I and my nation, have seen that Appointed One. We 
did not know Him. We crucified Him. But God has 
given confirmation unto all men in that He hath 
raised Him from the dead." 



Now there is coming the crisis of the whole speech 
which the rest only led up to. Paul is now going to 
preach Christ. But in a moment the whole life goes 
out of his speech. The audience is laughing! An eager 
speaker can stand uproar and opposition, but he can- 
not go on when people are laughing. They are moving 
in their seats, impatiently muttering to each other, 
"Nonsense, come away. The man is a fool. Resur- 
surection from the dead indeed! Let us get away out 



IN ATHENS 101 

of this!" The chiefs of the assembly are courteous to 
the end. They bow him politely out of the court. 
"Thank you, sir, for your speech. We hope to hear you 
again some other time. ,, 

Thus "Paul went out from among them. ,, I see 
him walk back to his lodging sore and disappointed 
and feeling as every impassioned speaker at such times 
would feel. "I have failed badly. I might have done 
better if I had kept back the mention of the Resur- 
rection till I had told them the story of Jesus. Anyway 
I am done with these conceited scholars. I go back to 
the simple work-people who will listen to me. In future 
I will preach Christ only." 

He could not easily forget that day. I see the 
memory of it repeatedly in his letters later. "Not 
many wise or noble are called. The wisdom of this 
world is foolishness with God. We preach Christ cru- 
cified to the Jews, a stumbling-block to the Greeks' 
foolishness — but to us who are called, Christ the power 
of God and the wisdom of God." 



CHAPTER X 

The New Testament in the Making 

Paul has left Athens, disappointed and discouraged. 
He has failed — and he does not like failing. And he is 
a good deal troubled too about his converts at Salon- 
ika. The last he had seen of them was in the street 
riot, when the Jews had stirred up the scum of the town 
against them. With keen sympathy he realizes all that 
they have to face, the movements against their faith; 
the lies and slanders, the many temptations that would 
drag them back to their old evil life. 

And he can get no news. At Athens, Timothy had 
caught him up, but in spite of his loneliness he had sent 
him to Salonika to help and to report. But no message 
has come yet. 

So Paul is troubled. It is not strange that Paul 
should have his despondent moments. We are all 
creatures of temperament. He was a truly happy man. 
His high faith in God taught him a boundless optimism. 
He could sing psalms in the dungeon. He could bid 
his people rejoice always. Neither life nor death had 
any terrors for a man who knew God as he did. Every 
Christian has a right to go through life with this op- 
timist attitude. 

But we all have our passing fits of depression, 
especially if we are in bad health, when we are not able 
to realize all that we have to be glad about. I don't 

102 



THE NEW TESTAMENT IN THE MAKING 103 

suppose they do us much harm provided that they come 
seldom. It is human, and Paul was very human. 

II 

So it was a rather troubled man that walked one 
day unnoticed and unknown into the great, wealthy, 
wicked city of Corinth. How little the people of Cor- 
inth could have imagined that in ages to come the 
chief historic significance of their great city would 
centre on the fact that this poor Jewish missionary had 
come that day into it. Down in the lower town he finds 
a tentmaker at his shop door. He asks for work. The 
tentmaker is a friendly man and takes rather a fancy 
to him. He tells him that his name is Aquila, lately 
banished with other Jews from Rome. He introduces 
him to his good wife Priscilla and gives him a place 
in the workshop and a room in his house. And thus 
begins one of the pleasantest friendships of Paul's life, 
a friendship that resulted for Aquila and Priscilla in 
the joy of becoming followers of Christ. 

Thus Paul began his ministry in Corinth, "in weak- 
ness and fear and much trembling," he says. His fail- 
ure in Athens had evidently shaken him. I think he 
expected to fail in Corinth too. One hardly wonders. 
For Corinth was about the most wicked city of the 
world at the time. Its vice was so rampant and un- 
blushing that it became a proverb. "A Corinthian 
drinker," a "Corinthian banquet" were bywords for 
the lowest profligacy. 

But he must face it. Every day he worked in the 
shop, and you may be sure that workshop was a purer, 
nobler place for his presence. Would that that could be 
said of us all ! Every evening after work was done, he 



104 THE MASTER BUILDER 

tried to tell people about Jesus and the conquering 
power of the Holy Ghost over sin. And every Sabbath 
he reasoned in the synagogue. But the Jews had little 
sympathy with him. They could not stand his teach- 
ing that all the proud hopes of their nation for centuries 
had ended in a Messiah on the cross of shame. At last 
they rose up fiercely against him, contradicting and 
blaspheming. 

There was a limit to what Paul could stand from 
them. One day in fierce anger he shook out his raiment 
in stern repudiation, "Your blood be on your own heads; 
henceforth I go to the Gentiles." Then the fight was 
on. Paul did not shirk it. He hired a little hall next 
door. He drew crowds of people. He converted and 
baptized Crispus, their chief in the synagogue. There 
could be no truce with him after that. 

It was not a pleasant time. But he could bring 
all his troubles and leave them with God. And every 
night he could talk things over with Aquila and Pris- 
cilla. And then one night when things were at their 
worst came the turn of the tide. The Lord appeared 
unto him in the visions of the night: "Fear not, Paul, 
and hold not thy peace, for I am with thee and I have 
much people in this city." In a moment the whole 
outlook changed. The sun was shining, the world was 
bright. What mattered anything with Christ beside 
him and the power of the Omnipotent at his back! It 
was a changed man that his friends saw at breakfast 
next morning. 

in 

Thus began one of the most successful missions of 
his life. Perhaps it was because his preaching had 
grown simpler and more intense. There was a re- 



THE NEW TESTAMENT IN THE MAKING 105 

bound from his philosophical preaching which had 
failed at Athens. 

Now he would talk only about Christ. He writes 
later to these Corinthians who had compared his 
teachings with the clever oratory of Apollos. "I 
was determined to know nothing among you save 
Jesus Christ, and him crucified." As a result many 
believed and were baptized. We learn from his Cor- 
inthian letters what sort of people they were, "Not 
many wise nor noble," mostly working people and 
many of the profligate and degraded classes. Corinth 
was a city of drunkards, extortioners and libertines. 
He tells them straight out. "Neither fornicators nor 
adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves 
with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor extor- 
tioners shall inherit the Kingdom of God, and such were 
some of you.' 9 These were the people on whom to 
test the power of Christianity. If Christ could save 
them from sin He could save anybody. And He 
plainly was saving them. Men could see it in the 
bright, hopeful faces marked deep with lines of de- 
bauchery and sin. Grafters and drunkards and thieves 
and jailbirds and prostitutes were mingled in that 
little meeting-room with people of decent lives. But 
they all had the peace of God in their hearts and the 
light of hope in their eyes. They had tested Christ 
and He had not failed them. Religion becomes an 
intensely real and practical thing when men see results 
like that. If you were Paul and had a gospel that 
could do that, would you not feel that nothing was 
too much to do for it? You are not Paul. But you 
have a gospel like that. Don't you forget it in your 
missionary efforts, 



106 THE MASTER BUILDER 

So came hope and courage back to Paul, and he 
wondered why he had ever been so despondent. 

IV 

Then something else very pleasant happened. 

One day a shadow falls through the door of the 

workshop; he looks up from his tentmaking to see 

Silas and Timothy standing at the door! News at 

V last from Salonika! And it is delightful news that 

\ Timothy brings. "They are unshaken in their faith. 

\They are making fine progress. The heathen are 

mjmpressed by them. And they have the kindliest 

r* feelings for you, Paul. They are most affectionate 

about you and are longing to see you again." It 

was a great delight to Paul. "I live again," he says, 

"when ye stand fast in the Lord." 

"Of course," Timothy said, "it is not all rose- 
coloured. Some have fallen back. A. and B. and 
the old sailorman C. have been drinking badly. Those 
three girls near the city gate have gone back on 
the street. And there is another thing I do not 
like. There is a rather unwholesome excitement 
about the second coming of Christ that keeps the 
people restless and disinclined for quiet work. And 
death has been busy with the little congregation. 
Our old friend on the hill has lost his wife. Four of 
our men were drowned at Cenchrea last month and 
the mourners are not only sorrowing for their dear 
ones but rather perplexed as well. They are asking, 
What about the second coming of the Lord in our life- 
time? Our beloved are dead. Have they missed Him 
altogether? And so on." 

I see Timothy telling the news. I watch the 



THE NEW TESTAMENT IN THE MAKING 107 

eagerness of Paul and the quick changes on his face 
as he listens. 

"O Timothy, I wish I could go to them this 
moment. But I cannot with this growing congre- 
gation so eager in Corinth. Look here, go down to 
the artist's shop in the next street and buy sheets 
of papyrus. We will write them a letter." 

That was a happy thought for the world. Thus 
began the most important stage in Paul's great life 
work. Thus began the making of the New Testament. 



Perhaps you do not all know that the New Tes- 
tament began with the writing of the Epistles. And 
that Paul began it that day in the shabby little work- 
shop of Aquila, the tentmaker. 

It is the year 50 a.d., 17 years after the Cru- 
cifixion. There was no Bible except the Old Testa- 
ment. Not a page of our gospels was written yet — 
nor for nearly twenty years afterwards. It is a 
curious fact. One would have expected that the first 
thing Christians would do after Pentecost would be 
to go to the Apostles and ask them, Write us down 
in a book at once everything that you have seen 
and heard and learned about Jesus in those wonderful 
three years. But they did not. You see they were 
not accustomed to books. They did not want books. 
Most of them could not read. Their whole training 
had been oral. Their knowledge of a thing had 
always come by hearsay. There were no newspapers. 
When there was any news somebody told it. Written 
books or read books, except the Bible, were not at 
all in their line. 



108 THE MASTER BUILDER 

They were simple, plain people, fishers and farmers 
and servants and tentmakers and artisans. They 
were very happy in their new religion. One thought 
dominates all life for them. "We know that the 
Son of God is come." They want to hear every- 
thing about Him. But they do not want books. 

Also if you put yourself in their place you will 
see that it is hardly worth while writing books. For 
mingled with their new joy is a restless expectancy. 
They believe that Jesus will come back during their 
lifetime to take them all to Heaven. They do not 
know the moment. It may be any day "at evening 
or at midnight, or at cockcrow or in the morning." 
Even Paul expects this. He writes in this very 
epistle to the Thessalonians, "We which are alive 
and remain unto the coming of the Lord." So with 
Heaven lying about them there was no need of writing 
books for the future. There was no future except 
a future in glory with the Lord. 

So they gathered together in their weekly assem- 
blies to listen to the burning words of men who had 
been with Jesus or had learned about Him from those 
who had. The prominent facts were most frequently 
taught, the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, the Resur- 
rection, the Ascension, the Glorified Jesus. 

And everywhere in a hundred places together 
were the preparation classes for Baptism like our 
Confirmation classes. Converts had to be taught 
in regular order the life of Jesus. They grew quite 
familiar with it. 

Thus there arose an oral gospel published through 
the whole Church, not in written books, but in the 
fleshly tables of the heart. By and bye the listeners 



THE NEW TESTAMENT IN THE MAKING 109 

wrote out little bits of it, sayings of Jesus and such 
like. But not one of our four gospels was written 
till nearly twenty years after this date. 

VI 

So the first Christian writings were the Epistles 
of St. Paul, and first of them all was this letter to 
the Thessalonians, called forth by the simple neces- 
sities of the moment. God's ways are not our ways. 
We should probably expect the Christian Bible to 
begin with solemn, formal, logically written books. 
But God knows best. We believe that the Holy 
Ghost was inspiring Paul. And we believe that He 
guided him to write not formal treatises, but simple, 
natural, unconventional letters such as we should 
write ourselves to-day to our soldier boys in this 
same Salonika. A formal treatise might have its 
advantages. But this simple letter style had its 
advantages too. It was more natural. It gave more 
scope for freedom of expression and intensity of feeling 
and the free familiarity of personal intercourse. / 

Paul wrote straight from the heart. This gives 
that vivid freshness of style, that intenseness and 
sincerity and personal touch. A formal book would 
never have moved the world as these letters have 
done. Take away the traces of passion, the stern 
denunciation, the affectionate entreaties, the frank 
colloquialism, the personal details, and you would 
never have had the grip of these writings on the soul 
of the world. God guided Paul to write simple, 
natural letters, and when you read them you had better 
keep that in mind. "* 

Thessalonians is Paul's first Epistle. I wish some 



110 THE MASTER BUILDER 

publishers would have the courage of breaking with 
the stupid old tradition and print the Bible with the 
Epistles in their chronological order. It would help 
us to understand the development of Paul's thought, 
and in some measure, the development of the early 
Church. The present arrangement seems to be based 
on no plan, or on the plan of putting the longest first 
and then arranging in order of length. We have 
actually Paul's first Epistles and his last side by side. 
It is very stupid. But it has gone on so long that 
people are afraid to change it. I am in correspondence 
with a great Bible house, and I am hoping to per- 
suade them to try a small edition of the Bible printed 
in the way I suggest. It will need some courage. 
But it will have valuable results if they do it/ 

VII 

Now I picture to myself the very first beginning 
in the making of the New Testament. Paul and 
Silas and Timothy are in the shabby workshop after 
hours. They have bought the papyrus sheets in 
the artist's shop around the corner. Parchment was 
not used for letters. In any case it would be too dear 
for poor people. But they could buy papyrus sheets 
in the shops as we buy foolscap from six to eighteen 
inches wide and of any length required. We know 
that from the papyri that have been discovered. 

Paul is dictating the letter while he works. Busy 
people then as now dictated when they could instead 
of writing and perhaps Paul's weak eyes made it more 
necessary in his case. At any rate, we know that it 
was his custom. Then at the close he would scrawl 
in a few words of blessing or remembrance with his 



THE NEW TESTAMENT IN THE MAKING 111 

name, "which is my token," he says, "in every epistle." 
This dictation gives much of the vividness in his letters, 
the broken sentences, the frequent interruptions of his 
thought. 

They are just his rapid thoughts taken down as 
they arise. I think Silas is the writer, for I find him 
afterwards acting as writer in the epistle of Peter 
(i Peter, v:i2). Now listen to Paul dictating: 

"Paul and Silvanus" — (Silas is short for Silvanus, 
but Paul is a dignified person and calls men by their 
full names). "Paul and Silvanus and Timothy to 
the Church of the Thessalonians, grace be to you and 
peace." 

"But," I hear Silas say, "Paul, this is your letter 
— our names should not appear." 

"No, Silvanus, it is our letter. We feel the same 
about our friends in Thessalonika." 

I like to think of the kindliness, and modesty, and 
generous courtesy of the man associating his sub- 
ordinates as equals with himself. And I think, too, 
how little these two thought that day that they 
were writing in that mean little workroom the first 
words of the great Christian Scriptures for all ages 
to come. 

VIII 

First, he must let them know how glad he is: 

We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention 
of you in our prayers; remembering without ceasing your work 
of faith and labour of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus 
Christ, before our God and Father. 

Then he changes the note. He is thinking of all 
the slanders of his enemies about him, that he was 



112 THE MASTER BUILDER 

not a real apostle like the others, that he had some self- 
seeking purpose, that this collecting of money for the 
poor looked suspicious, etc. "You know it is not 
true," he says. 

God is my witness that I did not hide covetousness under 
fair pretences . . . that I did not seek anything from you. You 
remember how I worked night and day that I might not burden 
any of you, while I proclaimed the glad tidings of God. 

I am longing to see you again. I tried to get to you, but 
I could not. I have been very anxious about you. When I 
was left in Athens alone, I sent Timothy to inquire about you. 
He has only just come back with the happy news, and I am greatly 
comforted. For I live again if ye be steadfast in the Lord. 

And now I want to write about your manner of life. Watch 
especially against lustful passions, the chief sin of your past life 
and your great danger still. For God hath not called us to un- 
cleanness, but unto holiness. 

Concerning brotherly love I need not write to you, for you 
are taught of God to love one another. But I desire that you 
settle down quietly to work. Do not get restless and excited 
about the coming of the Lord. He may come any day. I know 
not when, but let him find you doing your ordinary work well, 
that the outsiders may not reproach us. 

Then comes his tender thought of them mourning 
for their dead, and troubled because their dear ones 
have missed the second coming. With deep sympathy 
he dictates that classic passage, the comfort of count- 
less mourners in all the ages since. 

I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them 
that are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others which have 
no hope. 

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also those 
that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say 
unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and re- 
main unto the coming of the Lord shall not go before those who 
are asleep. 

For the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with the voice 



THE NEW TESTAMENT IN THE MAKING US 

of the archangel and 4 the trump of God. And the dead in Christ 
shall rise first. Then we who remain shall be caught up with 
them to meet the Lord in the air, wherefore comfort one another 
with these words. 

Next comes a little set of short practical exhortations. 

Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. Continue to give 
thanks whatever be your lot. Quench not the spirit. Keep clear 
of every form of evil. 

Now I see him scrawling in the conclusion of the 
letter himself in his own handwriting. 

May the God of peace sanctify you wholly and may your 
spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless at the offering 
of Our Lord Jesus Christ. God will fulfil my prayer for you. 
And brethren, pray ye for me. See that this letter be read to 
all the brethren. The grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ be with 
you. 

I wish you would read that letter through at one 
sitting. You can do it in fifteen minutes. And as 
you read it, call up in your mind that poor tentmaker 
dictating it with the joy of God in his heart, and the 
tender, solicitous sympathy for the friends he loved. 
Put yourself in his place. Put life and heart into it. 
Make it real. 

IX 

A few months later he writes again. I shall not 
comment on the second Epistle. It is not nearly 
as interesting as the first. Evidently he has heard 
that they are losing balance, in their restless excite- 
ment expecting Christ any day. They will not settle 
down to ordinary work, but are going about in dreamy 
contemplation, singing and holding prayer meetings 
and watching for the Lord. 



114 THE MASTER BUILDER 

History tells of a similar condition more than 
once. In the year iooo a.d., and at the time of the 
Reformation and more or less at other times, even 
down to fifty years ago when fanatics were prophesying 
and fixing dates for the end of the world. We had 
a slight renewal of it last year, owing to the war. 

This letter is written to steady the Thessalonians. 
Its main thought is expressed in that old story of 
New England, when one day in one of those times of 
excitement about the end of the world, a sudden 
darkness came at noonday while the Assembly was 
in sitting. Men got frightened and cried, "It is the 
coming of Christ, it is the end of the world." 

"Bring in candles," said the old president, "and 
go on with your work. If the Lord is coming, how 
better can He find us than quietly doing our duty." 

That is the spirit of Paul's second Epistle to the 
Thessalonians. 



CHAPTER XI 
Diana of the Ephesians 

After writing the Thessalonian letters Paul re- 
mained on in Corinth, founding a Church of Christ 
amongst the lowest classes, largely slaves and people 
of degraded life. On the one hand it was the most 
inspiring work, proving the glorious power of Christ 
on the lowest sinners. But on the other hand, as we 
see later, such classes make a perilous setting for a 
church unless their founder can stay with them. 
Perhaps that was why he stayed nearly two years. 

But he must go on. He is the pioneer of the 
gospel to the civilized world. He cannot stay in 
one place. He can only ordain presbyters and in- 
struct them carefully and entrust Corinth to his 
Lord. 

So early in the year 53 a.d. he starts for Jerusalem 
to keep the Passover and then steers straight for his 
home base at Antioch, the city of the Colonnades, 
from which he had started five years ago on his second 
missionary journey. There is not time to follow 
him here. You must imagine for yourselves the interest 
of his Passover at Jerusalem, meeting the other Apostles, 
telling of his work, mingling in the worshipping crowd 
from every land. I do not think he enjoyed it as 
much as we should expect. He was never very happy 
with the Jerusalem Christians. They were timid, con- 

115 



116 THE MASTER BUILDER 

servative, bigoted. They looked askance at his daring 
revolutionary methods with the heathen. It is pleas- 
anter to picture his triumphant reception at the dear old 
home church of Antioch, now become the great mother 
church of Gentile Christianity. He was their be- 
loved chief and hero. He belonged especially to them. 
Theirs was the high honour of having sent him forth on 
his already famous world mission for their Lord. 

How delightful if he could stay with them! But 
he must not. The vastness of his life work is being 
revealed to him. And old age is coming in sight. 
Not many years left, and so much to do before the 
end. So he bids good-bye to his beloved Antioch, 
never to see it again, and starts on the greatest and 
most fruitful stage of his life, which was to end at 
the headsman's block in Rome. 

II 

First came his episcopal visitation, as we may call 
it, confirming many churches which he had founded, 
passing through his boyhood home at Tarsus, visiting 
Lystra, the home of his young comrade Timothy. 
I cannot follow him in this journey. At its close I 
present him entering the great city of Ephesus to 
claim its surrender to the Kingdom of Christ. So 
far as we can judge, Timothy was with him and also 
another young comrade, Titus, who now comes prom- 
inently into his life. And who do you think were 
waiting for him in that lonely heathen city? His 
dear old friends from Corinth, Aquila and Priscilla 
of the tentmaker's shop! You can imagine what it 
meant to a lonely, burdened man to find that kindly 
old couple waiting to receive him. 



DIANA OF THE EPHESIANS 117 

It was most important for the Church to get a 
footing in Ephesus, a great central city with its fine 
Roman roads branching out in every direction. In 
its district lay the six towns whose names are so 
familiar now through the Book of the Revelation of St. 
John, Sardis and Smyrna and Philadelphia and Laod- 
icea and Pergamos and Thyatira, the city of Lydia 
the seller of purple. St. John, you know, in his later 
life settled down as bishop in Ephesus, so you will 
understand why these churches were in his mind as 
he wrote "to the angel of the church in Sardis," 
"to the angel of the church in Thyatira, ,, and so on. 
These with Ephesus are the seven churches founded 
most probably during this mission by Paul and his 
companions. Ephesus has a high claim on our atten- 
tion, if only for these churches. And Ephesus has 
a still higher claim on our attention as giving us fifty 
years later the Gospel of St. John. Pity someone 
could not tell to Paul on that lonely day of his entry, 
what Ephesus would afterwards mean to the Church 
of God. 

It did not look much like it that day. Ephesus 
was one of the greatest strongholds of paganism. 
Its fame rested chiefly on its magnificent temple of 
Diana, one of the seven wonders of the world. The 
sun, it was said, saw nothing in his course more glorious 
than the temple of Diana at Ephesus. The whole 
province of Asia contributed to its erection. All the 
Greek cities around were enthusiastic about it. It 
was the great rallying point of heathenism. You can 
see it depicted on the Ephesian coins in the British 
Museum to-day with its ugly black idol that fell down 
from Jupiter. The Ephesians were inordinately proud 



118 THE MASTER BUILDER 

of their black idol and of the fame of their city as the 
temple-keeper of Diana. 

This worship of Diana made Ephesus the centre 
of magic and sorcery. There the professors of the 
black art practised their incantations openly. They 
could raise the devil, they could frighten the wits — 
and the money — out of their credulous votaries, 
calling up evil spirits, principalities and powers and 
rulers of darkness. You remember how Paul thinks 
of it in his letter to these Ephesians. "We wrestle 
not with flesh and blood but against principalities and 
powers and the rulers of darkness and the spiritual 
hosts of wickedness in high places." 

Think of a poor missionary facing that abode 
of Satan with nothing but his improbable little story 
of Jesus and his little service of Bread and Wine — 
to win for his Lord a vast pagan city nearly as large 
as Montreal! Surely Christ must have been very 
real to him when he could dare to attempt such an 
enterprise as that. Surely Paul, if he were not the 
wildest of dreamers, must have had a tremendous 
faith in the presence and power of the Eternal Son 
of God. If we had even a tithe of his faith to-day 
we too should turn the world upside down in our 
enthusiasm. That Son of God is just as real and 
as close and as powerful to-day. But, alas! we do not 
turn the world upside down for Him. Fools that we 
are, and slow of heart to believe! Lord increase our 
faith! 

in 

At the very beginning of his mission in Ephesus, 
we get a curious sidelight on the story. He met one 



DIANA OF THE EPHESIANS 119 

day twelve men. They seemed to be baptized Chris- 
tians, but they rather puzzled him, their ideas were 
so defective. He asked them, "Have ye received 
the Holy Ghost when ye believed ?" The gift of the 
Holy Ghost, you know, was conferred by laying on 
of apostolic hands after baptism. The whole Cath- 
olic church continues this still in the rite of Confir- 
mation. So that Paul's question would mean as 
if we should ask, Have ye been confirmed since ye 
believed? Have ye received the Holy Ghost by the 
laying on of hands after Baptism? "No," they said, 
"we have not so much as heard about the Holy Ghost." 
"Into what then were ye baptized?" And they 
said, "Into John's baptism." So he discovered the 
curious fact that they were disciples of John the 
Baptist's teaching and had never got any farther. 
Then he taught them the fuller teaching about Christ 
and the gift of the Holy Ghost and handed them 
over to his assistants to be baptized, and then he laid 
his hands on them and the power of the Holy Ghost 
fell on them. 

That was an interesting experience for Paul. 
But it was doubly so when Aquila and Priscilla got 
talking with him about things that had happened 
in his absence. They told him of another man of 
the same group, a great scholar and most attractive 
preacher, mighty in the Scriptures. His name was 
Apollos. His preaching had made quite a sensation 
in Ephesus before Paul came. In spite of his defective 
teaching he was like another Baptist preparing the 
way of the Lord. Aquila and Priscilla went one day 
to hear him. It was powerful preaching, but they 
missed the confident ring of Paul. They saw that 



no THE MASTER BUILDER 

the preacher did not know what they knew. So they 
made friends with him — I think anybody would make 
friends with that dear old couple — and he came often 
to their house and they taught him the way of God 
fully as they had learned it from Paul. And now 
he was off in Corinth preaching Jesus Christ. 

Was not it nice to hear that? Those dear old 
friends could not preach, but they could love and 
make religion lovable and they could tell in simple 
words about the Lord who was so dear to them. 
I think you would enjoy knowing Aquila and Priscilla. 

By the way, there was some trouble about this 
matter later on in Corinth. For Apollos was a much 
more attractive and eloquent preacher than Paul. 
And like some modern Christians, some of the Cor- 
inthians ran after their favourite preacher and boasted 
about his superiority over Paul. We shall hear of 
this later on. 

IV 

As usual 5 Paul began with the Synagogue of the 
Jews, and as usual, the Jews cast him out. They 
could not stand the shame of a crucified Messiah. 
It is one of the mysterious tragedies of history that 
rejection of the Messiah by his own people who had 
been looking forward to him for iooo years. As St. 
John pathetically puts it, "He came unto his own 
and His own received Him not.' , 

Then a lecturer named Tyrannus lent his school 
after hours and there for two whole years, as he tells 
afterwards, he ceased not to admonish everyone day 
and night with tears, preaching both to Jews and Greeks 
"repentance toward God and faith towards Our Lord 



DIANA OF THE EPHESIANS 121 

Jesus Christ." The same simple old Gospel which 
the Church has to teach to-day. Very practical. 
Very simple. No cleverness required to understand 
it. "The wayfaring men though fools shall not err 
therein." Just that I should see my sin and be sorry 
for it and turn to God with earnest resolve — and then 
— just trust myself utterly to Christ. 

v 

Through the blessing of Him who was watching 
over Paul, that simple Gospel became a mighty 
power in Ephesus in the midst of its foul sins and 
idolatries and black magic. I read that not only 
the Ephesians, but the whole province of Asia heard 
the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. 
I read that the Church grew so fast that it needed 
many presbyters to preside over it. 1 I read of one 
never to be forgotten scene where, in the midst of 
an enthusiastic crowd, the professors of sorcery and 
magic brought their cabalistic books into the square 
for a great bonfire and while the books were burn- 
ing and the Christians were praising God, some one 
calculated roughly the value of those books at 50,000 
pieces of silver. It was like the days of Savonarola 
at Florence in the Middle Ages. You can imagine 
the delight of Paul as he watched that fire and thanked 
God for the honest practical religion which caused it, 
and for the glorious triumph of his dear Lord in 
Ephesus. 

VI 

The devil has to get busy at a time like that. 
So we are not surprised at another spectacular event 

^cts xx : 17. 



m THE MASTER BUILDER 

soon after. It is the month of May, the month of 
Diana, when the whole province has crowded into 
Ephesus for the annual celebrations. From the towns 
of the coast and the interior they swarm, in their pic- 
turesque national dress, to enjoy the games and revel- 
ries, in honour of their goddess. It was a brilliant sight. 
To the Jews it would call up the historic picture of 
that famous day in Babylon long ago — of Nebu- 
chadnezzar and Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego and 
the image which Nebuchadnezzar the King had set up. 

This was the great harvest time for the makers 
of shrines and images. But this year there is a serious 
drop in their trade. The Christians have been teach- 
ing that "the Godhead is not like to silver and gold 
graven by art and men's device." The bonfire in 
the square has set people thinking. The craft of the 
image makers is in serious danger. 

So in the midst of the gay celebrations Demetrius 
the silversmith calls the craftsmen together to lecture 
them — on religion. Demetrius was very much con- 
cerned about the injury to religion — when it touched 
his pocket. That is a very human touch. When the 
tariff injures the trade in cattle, the Ontario farmer 
writes of the danger to the country. When the drink 
trade is injured by prohibition we hear stirring appeals 
for the liberty of the subject. So Demetrius is greatly 
troubled "lest the image of the great goddess Diana 
should be despised whom all Asia and the world 
worshippeth." 

Soon the mob has caught up the cry, and a rush 
is made for the Jewish quarter and the tentmaker's 
shop. They are on a visit to Paul. If they had 
caught Paul just then it would have finished these 



DIANA OF THE EPHESIANS 123 

lectures. But Paul was not at home. Aquila and 
Priscilla had probably made clever plans. "They 
risked their necks for me," says Paul in his Roman 
epistle. At any rate, the mob did not get him. He 
tried to go and face them when he saw danger for 
his friends, but the brethren held him back, and the 
Asiarchs, who presided over the games, sent him a 
kindly message that his coming would only do worse 
harm by exciting the mob. So the mob had to spend 
their energies in shouting through the streets for the 
space of two hours, " Great is Diana of the Ephe- 
sians." There is a capital little touch here about the 
intelligence of mobs, "the greater part knew not why 
they were come together." 

We believe that Paul and the disciples were praying. 
We believe that the Lord was watching over His 
little church and could guide the hearts of men, whether 
pagan or Christian. God works by ordinary means. 
Two hours of shouting does a good deal to tire people, 
and the whole mad uproar which might have had 
serious results, fizzled out after a wise speech from 
the town clerk of Ephesus. "Go home and be quiet. 
If Demetrius and his friends have any cause of com- 
plaint, the courts are open to them. As for you, 
your city is in grave danger of being called in question 
for this day's uproar." 

Though Paul escaped with his life, his letter written 
from Ephesus at this time hints of a terrible time. 
"After the manner of men I fought with beasts in 
Ephesus — despairing even of life — buffeted, reviled, 
persecuted, defamed, made as the filth of the world 
and the ofFscouring of all things." 

He makes very little of these outward things, but 



124 THE MASTER BUILDER 

in one verse he refers to a burden which we do not 
sufficiently keep in mind, "that which cometh upon me 
daily, the care of all the churches. " I refer to it now 
because it introduces his Epistle to the Corinthians, 
written at this time from Ephesus. 

VII 

"The care of all the churches." During all this 
time of strain he had been watching anxiously over 
the many churches he had founded. So little would 
suffice to throw them back. Just now he is especially 
troubled about his last mission, the young church in 
Corinth. Disquieting rumours had come, Degraded 
heathen people do not become saints in a moment. 
While he was with them, things went well. But that 
was three years ago. And they were living in very 
wicked surroundings, where Christian purity and 
honesty were things to be laughed at and where every- 
thing tended to drag them back into the old evil life. 
In their first enthusiasm for Christ, they thought 
they could never fall. But Corinth was not Heaven. 
Christ had not come back. The dull, prosaic life had 
to be lived and the Heavenly vision began to fade. 

Apollos the great preacher had come back to 
Ephesus, and could tell Paul what was happening 
in Corinth. So he wrote the Corinthians a letter 
which is now lost (see I Cor. v:o/), bidding them to 
cast out fornicators from the Church. 

Then they wrote back a self-satisfied, conceited 
letter which vexed him a good deal. In this letter 
they asked him several questions. Whether second 
marriages were lawful to Christians. Whether a 
Christian should divorce his heathen wife. Whether 



DIANA OF THE EPHESIANS 125 

men should marry at all in view of the coming of 
Christ. Whether they might eat meats offered to 
idols. They wanted directions about church services 
and especially Holy Communion, and they had serious 
difficulties too, about the Resurrection. The letter 
was not pleasant reading. 

Meantime some Christians of the household of 
Chloe had come and told him still worse things. 
Nowadays when things go wrong in the church we 
are pointed back to the delightful days of the early 
Church when everybody was so holy and happy. 
Paul's experience takes the glamour off this. True, 
there were many who were a joy to his heart. But 
to his deep distress he learns that schisms and factions 
had arisen — that the church worship was often irrev- 
erent and disorderly — men had been seen drunk at 
the Holy Communion — that uncleanness of life was 
easily tolerated. Indeed, there was one horrible story 
of a baptized Christian living in open sin with his 
stepmother in his father's lifetime, and the church 
had not cast him out, probably because he was rich 
and important. 

Paul was horrified. It was enough to make any 
man but Paul throw up his work in despair. But 
Paul was not built that way. It was Christ's work 
and he trusted Christ. If Christ could have patience 
with these people just out of heathenism, he must 
have patience. You may be sure there was much 
of prayer and deep communion with God before he 
dictated to Sosthenes that most interesting of all 
his letters, his first Epistle to the Corinthians. I 
have but space to touch on a few prominent points 
that may help you to read this epistle for yourselves. 



126 THE MASTER BUILDER 



VIII 

After thanking God for all the good that is still 
amongst them through the grace of Christ, he goes on: 

Now I beseech you, brethren, that there be no divisions amongst 
you. For it hath been told me by those of Chloe's household 
that ye are divided. "I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas, 
I of Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? 
Were ye baptized into the name of Paul? \^Jiatj is Apollos**' and 
what is Paul? Ministers through whom ye v believed. Never 
think of us. Keep Christ before you. Keep ^bur unity ^in Christ. 

I hear sad things of you. And ye are not ashamed and sor- 
rowful about it. Ye are conceited and puffed up as though I 
would not come back with my authority as Christ's apostle. What 
will ye? Shall I have to come with a rod? I wrote unto you 
in a former letter, not to keep company with fornicators. And 
you conceitedly tell me that this is impossible unless you went 
out of the world altogether. You know what I meant. Now 
I tell you distinctly — if any baptized Christian be a fornicator, 
or idolator, or drunkard, cast him out of the church, banish him, 
do not even eat with him. A horrible story has come to me of 
a Christian man living in sin with his father's wife. And ye 
are not ashamed. Now I command you to gather the Church 
together, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and cast him out 
for his soul's good. Deliver him to Satan, for the destruction of 
his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. 

And here is another wrong. How dare you Christian people 
bring lawsuits against each other in heathen courts, so that they 
mock at your religion of love? 

Now, concerning the things you asked me about. First about 
marriage and the chastity of marriage. These are my directions. 
(Here comes in a whole chapter of directions. I notice just one 
point concerning divorce of a heathen wife or husband.) Do 
not do it. Do not marry heathens. But if you are already 
married do not separate. How do you know that you may not save 
that heathen wife or husband as they watch your Christian life. 

That common sense advice appeals to us all. 
Paul evidently had not before him the more difficult 
case that has repeatedly come up in our day in the 



DIANA OF THE EPHESIANS 127 

missions in Africa, where the convert has already 
half a dozen heathen wives. A Christian cannot live 
in polygamy. Shall he divorce them all? Or shall 
he keep one, and if so, which one? The first one or 
the one he likes best? This question has caused grave 
perplexity to Archbishops of Canterbury and I am 
sure the English bishops have often wished that Paul 
had had such a case. 

Now concerning meats offered to idols. Since an idol is nothing 
but a piece of brass it does not really matter. You are free, but 
take care how you use your freedom. For you have to think 
of weaker brethren who have not full knowledge. You may do 
them harm by doing a thing which otherwise is not really wrong. 
They may think it a justification of idolatry. You must think 
of them. If even the innocent eating of meat cause my brother 
to offend, I will eat no meat while the world lasteth lest it make 
my brother to offend. 

That is an important rule for the guidance of the 
Christian conscience. It may be an innocent thing 
to drink wine. You perhaps may do it quite safely, 
but you must also consider if your action may do 
harm to others who cannot do it safely. For a Chris- 
tian man who has lovingly worshipped God and 
received His Holy Communion, it is quite an inno- 
cent thing to play a game of golf on Sunday. If you 
were on a desert island with a couple of Christian 
friends I should see no harm in it. But suppose you 
do it in this city with a crowd of careless, godless 
men, who habitually neglect the worship of God — 
see how much harm the example may do. They do 
not know your heart or how earnestly you have wor- 
shipped God this morning. They will be encouraged 
in their sin. Therefore, you are not always at liberty 
to do what is innocent. 



128 THE MASTER BUILDER 

Now concerning the Holy Communion. Think of the awfulness 
of approaching Christ in a drunken condition. For Christ himself 
is in that sacrament. For I have received of the Lord that which 
I delivered unto you that the Lord Jesus, the same night that 
he was betrayed, took bread and blessed it and said, "This is 
my body." In like manner he took this cup and said, "This is 
the new covenant in my blood. This do in remembrance of me." 

The bread which we break is not the communion of the Body 
of Christ. 

The cup which we bless is not the communion of the Blood 
of Christ. 

Wherefore, whosoever shall eat and drink unworthily is guilty 
of the body and blood of the Lord. He eateth and drinketh 
judgment to himself not discerning the Lord's body. 

Then come other questions to be answered. But 
instead of giving petty rules and exact details he lifts 
all life up into the presence of his Lord and his Lord's 
great law of love. 

You want rules of spiritual gifts, about precedence in the 
church, about your relations in the world. I show unto you a 
more excellent way. Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity 
envieth not. Charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth 
not behave itself uncourteously, beareth all things, believeth all 
things, hopeth all things. 

Then comes the magnificent fifteenth chapter at 
the close, the great Resurrection Lesson of the Church 
through all the centuries. Death matters little, since 
Christ is at the other side. " O Death, where is thy 
sting ? O Grave, where is thy victory ?" 

I close with the thought how God brings good 
out of evil. Do you not think it was worth while to 
have all that evil in the church in Corinth and all 
those doubts and questionings and errors, to bring to 
us those glorious chapters on conscience, and charity, 
and on the Resurrection? 



CHAPTER XII 

The Care of All the Churches 

The period dealt with in this chapter, about nine 
months of the year 56 a.d., is rather difficult and 
perhaps not very interesting. St. Luke, in his diary, 
passes it over with a few sentences. We might do 
the same if we were dealing, as he is, only with Paul's 
life. But his letters also come into our plan. And 
his three most important letters were written in this 
period. 

In the last chapter we saw him deeply troubled 
about his converts in Corinth and writing his most 
interesting First Epistle to the Corinthians. This he 
sent by his young comrade Titus. Since then rumours 
have come that things were worse than he thought. 
The bigoted Jerusalem Christians are busy again 
trying to tie up the great free Gospel in the swaddling 
clothes of the Jewish Law, and they have many 
adherents in Corinth. 

The church in Corinth seems in danger of utter 
disruption. Now he is at Troas impatiently waiting 
for Titus and for news. 

You remember Troas on the historic plains of 
Troy, whence he started on his mission to Europe 
six years before. Then there were only himself 
and his three comrades, four Christians in Europe. 
Now he can look back on thousands of converts and 
the Church in Europe fairly started. He ought to 

129 



130 THE MASTER BUILDER 

be in high spirits over it. But he is not. The 
rumours from Corinth have shaken him badly. He 
is very despondent; all the more so because he 
seems to be sick again of his old humiliating, de- 
pressing malady, "the thorn in the flesh" as he calls 
it. In the second Corinthian letter, which I am 
just coming to, he says, "I prayed the Lord thrice 
to relieve me of it, but the only comfort I got was, 
My grace is sufficient for thee." 

ii 

From Troas he moves to Philippi — to the jailer 
and Lydia and the dear people that he loved best, 
I think, of all his converts. And there at last Titus 
met him. 

"Titus, tell me how they do in Corinth? Is the 
Church in danger? Have they read my letter? How 
did they take it?" 

Titus tells him, "The majority are 'loyal. In the 
main they took your directions kindly. They have 
cast out that incestuous sinner. They are reforming 
abuses. I think the loyal churchmen will be quite 
able to save the Church." 

What a relief to Paul! "God who comforteth the 
despondent, comforted me by the coming of Titus." 

But Titus adds, "The trouble about doctrine is 
still serious. There is a strong minority who are 
very bitter. Of course, the Jerusalem crowd are at 
the back of the trouble, and have seduced some of 
our people." 

"What are they saying?" 

"Oh, just the same old things — that your teaching 
is dangerous — that you are no real apostle, since you 



THE CARE OF ALL THE CHURCHES 131 

have not been commissioned by Jesus when on earth. 
They say you are vain and self-seeking — that you 
are brave in your letters but cowardly in their presence. 
In fact, they are taking every mean advantage of 
your absence. They are even whispering ugly insin- 
uations about money, about this collection of yours 
for the poor saints at Jerusalem." 

Poor Paul! This was his thanks for all he had 
done and suffered. Don't you forget this when you 
get little thanks for your efforts. 

Fancy all this coming on a man already depressed 
and sick. Many of us too have had our discouraging 
experiences. Well for us if, like Paul, we can go to 
Our Lord with them. 

All through his letters you see that was where 
his comfort lay. Jesus was his stand-by. He was a 
poor, weak, lovably human man, nervous, sleepless, 
depressed about his troubles. But the calm, strong 
Son of God was there to flee to. Jesus was not nerv- 
ous or sleepless or depressed about things. Paul 
could leave all in His hands who loved him and sym- 
pathized. That was the secret of his strength. 

in 

Paul is thankful for the faithful Christians. But 
he is uneasy and he is very indignant. He sees the 
grave danger to the Church. He is not going to stand 
much more of this. "You go right back, Titus, with 
another letter." 

Thus we get the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. 
It is quite different from the first. It is intense, 
strained, passionate. The air is electric. Keen irony, 
indignation, warning, threatening, bold insistence on 



132 THE MASTER BUILDER 

his apostolic authority from Christ. It is the Church's 
danger that has roused him. But through it all you 
can see the personal note too. You can see that his 
heart is quivering. For Paul is a very sensitive man 
who loves his people and has been hurt to the quick 
by their desertion. Strong men have often their sen- 
sitive nerve spots very near to the surface. 

In the first part of the Epistle he seems thinking 
of the faithful friends. The hurt feeling shews itself. 
But he does not let himself go till the tenth chapter. 
There he hits out hard. But he hits out like a gentle- 
man — with the quiet dignity of a Christian man: 

Now I Paul exhort you by the gentleness of Christ I who 
am mean forsooth and contemptible in outward presence yet 
very bold at a distance. I beseech you don't force me to shew 
the boldness with which I reckon to deal with some of you when 
I return. The weapons that I wield are not fleshly weapons, but 
mighty in God's strength to overthrow adversaries. I am ready 
to punish all who may be disobedient. I have the authority 
which the Lord hath given me. I am not writing empty threats. 
"For his letters," says one, "are weighty and powerful bat in 
bodily presence and speech he is contemptible." Let such a man 
assure himself that I will bear out my words by deeds. They 
boast and commend themselves. They are forsooth the old 
church, the true Hebrews, the seed of Abraham. But a man 
is worthy not when he commends himself but when the Lord 
commends him. 

If men are to boast, perhaps I too should have something to boast 
of. I entreat you do not count me a fool. Or if you do, you are 
such wise people you might bear with a fool and let him boast 
a little like these very Apostolic people from Jerusalem. Are 
they Hebrews? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So 
am I. Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool. I am 
more. In labours more abundant — in stripes above measure, 
in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times 
received I forty stripes save one — thrice was I scourged, once was 
I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have 
been in the deep, in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils 



THE CARE OF ALL THE CHURCHES 133 

of robbers, in perils from my own countrymen, in perils from the 
Gentiles, in perils from the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils 
in the sea, in labour and travail, in watchings often, in hunger 
and thirst, in fastings and cold and nakedness. Besides these 
things that which cometh on me daily the care of all the churches. 
The God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ who is blessed for 
evermore knoweth that I lie not. 

In what have I done you wrong? Is it a crime that I proclaimed 
to you the glad tidings of God without fee or reward? You in- 
sinuate about money. Even when I was in want did I ever let 
one of you contribute to my support? Why? Because I love 
you not? God knoweth that I love you. But what I do I will 
continue to do that I may cut off ground of slander. For these 
men whom you follow are false and deceitful, clothing themselves 
in the garb of Apostles of Christ. No wonder. Even Satan 
their master can transform himself into an angel of light. 

I do not think those Jerusalem visitors were very 
happy as this letter was read out next Sunday in 
Church. I am afraid I rather enjoy seeing them get 
what they deserve. But Paul did not enjoy it. He 
is too big a man to enjoy scolding. And his letter 
closes on a kindly note. 

I warn you all. But I trust I shall not have need of severity. 
Finally, brethren, farewell. Reform what is amiss. Be of one 
mind. Live in peace and the God of love and peace shall be 
with you. The grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the love 
of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with you all. 



CHAPTER XIII 
Faith and Works 

Titus was sent back to Corinth with this Second 
Epistle and soon after Paul followed it in person. He 
came to Corinth to encourage the faithful, to punish 
the wrongdoers, to excommunicate those who were 
wilfully obstinate in their sin. And so, in some degree, 
he brought peace to that distracted Church. 

But scarce had he accomplished this, when, .while 
he still remained in Corinth — like a bolt from the 
blue came tidings from Galatia of the very same 
trouble and worse, because the fickle Galatians were 
more easily led away. Again the Church was in 
serious danger and Paul had to buckle on his armour 
and again spring into the breach. Hence comes the 
Epistle to the Galatians, and a few weeks later, while 
his heart is full of the subject, he wrote his majestic 
Epistle to the Romans, for which the Galatian Epistle 
provided the rough draft. 

It is manifestly impossible in my limited space 
to comment on these great Epistles. But it is most 
important for your understanding of the Epistles 
that you should see clearly what Paul was fighting 
for ever since that day when he brought it before 
the Council of Jerusalem, and that you should realize 
that, humanly speaking, during that fight the very 
existence of the Christian Church was trembling in 

134 



FAITH AND WORKS 135 

the balance. If Paul was beaten, Christianity might 
have survived as an Eastern sect, as a hanger-on of 
Judaism, but the great, universal, world-wide Catholic 
Church for all humanity would never have been. 

II 

Let us state the question in dispute. Here are 
the two sides: 

(i) Salvation by the Works of the Law. 

(2) Salvation by Surrender to and Faith in the 
Son of God. 

What is meant by the works of the Law? 

Originally, in purer days, it meant real devotion 
to God, fenced in by concrete rules, such as the Ten 
Commandments, to guide the people. This is what 
the Law meant originally. This is what the Prophets 
fought to win back. 

But Jewish religion had sadly deteriorated. The 
few rules of guidance grew and grew as priests and 
rabbis and scribes went on "fencing the Law" for 
centuries, till these external rules numbered hundreds, 
many of them petty and tedious and vexatious, and 
as they grew the soul died out of them and the external 
rules became substitutes for the living God. If you 
do these things you have won your salvation. If 
you fail you are lost. And so God became a great 
taskmaster whose rules were hard to count and hard 
to know and harder to do. The common crowd who 
did not know them were damned. "This people who 
knoweth not the Law are cursed," * said the Pharisees. 
They cannot be saved. The earnest, conscientious 

1 John vii : 49. 



136 THE MASTER BUILDER 

Jew who tried to keep them fully had a very bad time. 
You remember how Paul tells in the Epistle to the 
Romans, his own miserable experience of trying to 
win salvation by the Law. "I cannot succeed. I 
try hard. I often fail. And if I succeed in one hundred 
points, and fail in one point, I am guilty of all." 
It was a miserable, distressing struggle. 

You remember the stern indignation of Jesus about 
the burden of these rules, and how He castigated the 
teachers till in their rage they arose and crucified Him. 
"Wo unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. Ye 
shut the Kingdom of Heaven on men by your rules. 
Ye bind grievous burdens on their shoulders. Wo 
unto you, ye blind guides. Ye cleanse the outside 
of the cup and platter (by your external rules) while 
within it is full of evil and excess. Ye give tithes of 
such trifles as mint and anise and cummin and leave 
undone the weightier matters of the Law, judgment 
and mercy and faith. Ye fools and blind! Ye whited 
sepulchres! Away with your petty little command- 
ments of the Law! There are only two real com- 
mandments of the Law, 'Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God with all thy heart and Thou shalt love thy 
neighbour as thyself. On these two hang all the Law 
and the Prophets.' " 

Now you see what Paul was fighting for, what the 
Prophets were fighting for, what Jesus was fighting 
for. You see what is meant by the works of the 
Law, with which Jerusalem Christians wanted to fetter 
the gospel. An ecclesiastical code of troublesome, com- 
plicated, external rules with the soul gone out of them. 
And Jewish rules, too. Note this especially. For if 
the gospel was to be put in these Jewish fetters — 



FAITH AND WORKS 137 

if Jewish rules were to be made burdens on Greek 
and Roman and Celt and Saxon, what likelihood was 
there of a great world-wide Church of Christ? 

Do you wonder that Paul fought fiercely, indig- 
nantly? Do you wonder that he felt heartbroken when 
the tidings came that the Galatians had been drawn 
away from the freedom of his gospel? Can you won- 
der that this Epistle to the Galatians is a very war cry? 

[in 

Let us look at this Galatian Epistle. 

It begins abruptly — severely. It is the only Epistle 
Deginning without words of praise and thankfulness. 
He is greatly hurt that those whom he loved should 
take sides with his enemies. He contradicts the false- 
hoods and calumnies. He tells the story of his life 
and his call by Christ. But chiefly he insists that this 
doctrine of the Judaizers would destroy the very 
essence of Christianity and reduce it from an inward 
spiritual life to a dry, external ceremonial system. 

He meets their objections, "Then what use is the 
Law?" The Law, he says, was very useful as originally 
given as a check on humanity in the preparation stage 
for Christ. Child rules are necessary for children. 
But we are past that child stage now that Christ has 
come. The Law, too, is as a tutor, a child-leader 
to bring us to Christ. Finding that we cannot of 
ourselves keep God's laws, we want the loving Christ 
and the power of the Holy Ghost. If you will read 
the Epistle over rapidly all at one sitting, again and 
again, keeping Paul's purpose in mind, you will easily 
get into the attitude of the writer and see what an 
interesting and valuable letter it is. 



138 THE MASTER BUILDER 



IV 

Now comes his greatest literary work, the Epistle 
to the Romans. He had long looked forward to 
visiting the great metropolis of the world. There was 
no church yet in Rome founded by any Apostle. It 
was probably at this time just a gathering of Chris- 
tians from many parts gravitating to the great city. 
We have not space here to discuss the origin of the 
Roman Church. At any rate Rome was the metrop- 
olis of the Empire, the centre of influence, and Paul 
felt the importance of giving to the Christians there 
a full and clearly reasoned statement of the Gospel. 
Perhaps he felt as old age was creeping on him, that 
it was full time he should lay down in a systematic 
treatise the great thoughts that had grown in him 
by God's inspiration through all his chequered life. 

Therefore this is not a mere letter, called forth by 
some special need, as are other letters. This is a great 
theological treatise for the Church, bearing on the 
points of most importance at the time. And he 
gives especial emphasis to the main question of the 
day — justification by faith in Christ as opposed to 
justification by the works of the Law. He had fought 
this battle fiercely in his Second Epistle to the Cor- 
inthians. He had fought it at white heat in the 
stress of the conflict in the Epistle to the Galatians. 
Now he writes more calmly. For the victory is al- 
most won. The catholic position of the church is 
fairly well assured against the assault that might have 
destroyed it. 



FAITH AND WORKS 139 



I have no thought of commenting on this noblest 
and deepest of all Paul's pronouncements. It is far 
too long a subject to deal with in detail here. But 
avoiding its deeper depths, let me try to give some 
little idea of its main thought to help you in reading it. 

After saluting them and introducing himself, he 
tells why he is writing and why he intends to come 
to them. "As the Apostle to the Gentiles I owe to 
them, I am debtor to them to bring the good tidings. 
I am debtor to Greek and Barbarian. So as much as 
in me is, I am ready to preach the Gospel to you at 
Rome also." 

First realize this. You know in your hearts that 
you need a Saviour because all, Jews and Gentiles, 
have broken God's law. You may say the Gentiles 
never had that law to break. Yes, they have. The 
Law of God in their conscience. So all have sinned. 
And we can do nothing ourselves to save ourselves. 
We are all shut up under condemnation. 

Now comes God's good news. The loving Father 
has provided the remedy, a free gift through Christ. 
On his side it is free, generous giving; on our side 
it is free, unmeritorious receiving. No room for 
bargaining or independence or pride. It is God's 
free gift to men undeserving. You cannot save your- 
selves. ' Through the works of the Law can no 
flesh living be justified." 

God makes no distinction. Jew or Gentile, great 
sinner or small, all are welcome to Him. To every 
penitent soul he will give not only forgiveness for the 
past, but the power of the Holy Ghost for their future. 



140 THE MASTER BUILDER 

(Notice how emphatically he dwells on this power of 
the Holy Ghost.) To win this while we were yet 
sinners Christ died for us. Nothing can keep back 
His love for the penitent. "Neither death nor life, 
nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers are able to 
separate us from the love of Christ. 

Then come the chapters on the deep mysteries of 
God's calling and election, so frequently misunderstood. 
Here he gives the mysterious hope to poor Israel who 
has lost its high calling for the present. One day all 
Israel shall be saved. 

So he closes, Pray for me that I may come to you 
in the fullness of the gospel, and may the God of peace 
be with you all. Amen. 



CHAPTER XIV 
The Works of the Law in the Twentieth Century 

This is a postcript to the preceding chapter. I 
have been thinking myself into the place of the reader 
of that chapter as he follows St. Paul in his strenuous 
fight against the Jewish Christians as to the meaning 
of Christ's religion. He can see distinctly the two 
sides in the controversy, the Religion of Faith in 
Christ versus the Religion of the Works of the Law, 
or in other words, the Devotion of the heart to God 
versus the Keeping of External Rules. 

Is he thinking that though all this may be in- 
teresting as a controversy of men of the first century, 
yet it has little practical bearing on men of the twentieth 
century who have quite passed beyond such thoughts ? 
I think he is, and my purpose here is to point out that 
he is wrong. The Religion of the Works of the Law 
as opposed to the Religion of Devotion to God belongs 
to the twentieth century as much as to the first. 
It belongs to all ages. It belongs down deep in the 
bedrock of human nature. 

ii 

Let us go over the two sides again. First look 
at Paul's side. 

This, said Paul, is the Glad Tidings revealed by 
Christ. God is not the Great Taskmaster, coldly 
watching to see if you keep or break external rules. 

141 



142 THE MASTER BUILDER 

God is the loving Father who cares tenderly for all 
His poor children and cannot bear to lose one of them. 
He seeks not the cold keeping of external rules, but 
the warm affection and devotion of His child. His 
supreme purpose is the making of beautiful, lovable 
character. That is what He wants for His child. 
That is Salvation. That is Heaven. 

It is not a case of your anxious independent effort 
to win Salvation by your own deservings. Conscience 
tells you you cannot. Every earnest man who ever 
tried it knows his failure. God cares more than you 
care. So the Eternal Son of God has taken hold for 
you. He died to win forgiveness for you. His Holy 
Spirit is inspiring in you noble thoughts and strength- 
ening you to noble deeds. Trust yourself to Christ. 
He makes Himself responsible for you. Let yourself 
go. Trust yourself utterly to his loving care for you 
here and hereafter. And his love for you will win yours 
in return. 

Ill 

Beside this put the Religion of the Works of the 
Law as St. Paul knew it. It means not only the earning 
of Salvation by one's own independent efforts, but 
the earning it by ceremonial observances and the 
keeping of certain external rules. This appeals not 
only to the pride, but also to the indolence and un- 
spiritualness of human nature. The whole teaching 
of the Prophets is a continuous protest against it. 
The relation of the heart to God, they insist, is what 
supremely matters. A well-known passage of Micah 
gives concisely the attitude of all his brethren. 

Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before 
the High God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings 



WORKS OF LAW IN THE 20th CENTURY 143 

and calves of a year old ? Shall I give my firstborn for my trans- 
gressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good. What doth the 
Lord require of thee but to do justly and love mercy and walk 
humbly with thy God ? * 

But the prophets had been long dead and in the 
centuries between religion had drifted back to the 
old low standpoint. Now again in the hands of 
Scribes and Pharisees it had come to mean the winning 
of God's favour by keeping external rules. 

This was the Religion of the Works of the Law 
in the days of Paul. "Here are certain external rules, 
moral and ceremonial. He that doeth these things 
shall live by them. You need not do more. You must 
not do less. If you succeed, then, by your own efforts 
and deservings you have won. If not, you have failed." 

Even in the light of old prophetic teaching this 
attitude would be wrong. How much more so after 
Christ had revealed the tenderness of God's father- 
hood. Apart from its hopelessness, it was such a 
cold, unloving attitude towards the Father. It was 
a cold, independent legal claim upon God. Like as 
if your boy should coldly say, So long as I behave 
decently and learn my lessons, my father is bound 
to support me and leave me his money when he dies — 
when you know how you lie awake at night thinking 
and planning for him and that all the joy of life would 
go if your boy went wrong. 

IV 

Now let us see how this Religion of the Works 
of the Law worked out in practice. 

1 Micah, vi. ■ 



144 THE MASTER BUILDER 

The nobler type of Pharisee, like Saul of Tarsus, 
before his conversion, set himself diligently, with minute 
scrupulosity to keep the two hundred and forty-eight 
precepts and the three hundred and forty-six pro- 
hibitions. But it did not satisfy his soul. In his 
higher moments he felt the unreality and hollowness of 
mere external rules and doubted if he could ever 
really win God's full approval. "I have kept certain 
precepts. I have failed in others, and he that ofFendeth 
in one point is guilty of all." Paul himself tells of 
this miserable time in his own life. All the same 
you cannot help respecting men like him who tried 
to do hard things. 

But — and this is what I want especially to em- 
phasize here — the average Jew did not bother about 
all these fine-drawn rules. In fact, he did not know 
them all. He kept the same attitude of winning 
salvation by his deeds. But he had an easy con- 
science. He chose the few prominent rules that ap- 
pealed to him and left out the rest. He must be cir- 
cumcised and go to the Festivals and not be an idolator 
or a thief or an adulterer. He was quite conscientious 
about living up to this easy standard. But he was 
satisfied with himself when he had done so. His 
conscience took him no farther. The devotion of his 
heart to God did not come in. So long as he kept his 
little external code, he did not see what further claim 
God had on him. He resented any further claim. 
No higher light from above was allowed to come in 
to rouse him to nobler things. 

This was the lower view, the average man's view 
of the religion of the Works of the Law. 



WORKS OF LAW IN THE 20th CENTURY 145 



Now I repeat my assertion that this Religion of 
the Works of the Law is as common in our day as in 
that of St. Paul. And the worst of it is — pay special 
attention to this — that is not the nobler type of it, 
as in the earnest Pharisee scrupulously struggling 
to keep all the precepts, but the lower type, the 
religion of the average Jew. Like the average man in 
Jerusalem the average man in Montreal leaves out the 
relation of his heart to God. To satisfy his conscience 
he picks out a little modicum of rules as they fit him- 
self and as they are sanctioned by the public opinion 
of his class. He makes his religion the keeping of these 
few easy external rules without ever a thought of the 
father's real claim upon his child, "My son, give me 
thine heart." 

"Without ever a thought," I said. No, that 
is not quite true. Now and then the thought ob- 
trudes, that what he has learned about God's love 
and Christ's atonement on the Cross ought to make 
some claim on his heart. But since he is not prepared 
for surrender to that claim he avoids thinking about 
it. "I am not a very religious man," he says, "but I'm 
not a bad sort of fellow. I am not doing anything 
wrong and I don't think God has anything much against 
me. 

VI 

Now I want to locate this twentieth-century man 
or woman. You must have noticed that, whether 
there be any heart relation to God or not, all decent 
people in a Christian country have a certain little 



146 THE MASTER BUILDER 

standard of life, rather a low, easy standard, but about 
which they are most conscientious. Not a bad little 
standard so far as it goes, and so long as they do not 
mistake it for religion. Religion must have God in 
it. Religion means in its essence the relation of the 
heart to God. 

The average decent schoolboy has three main laws: 
He must not lie nor bully a little chap, and above all 
things he must not be a sneak, to tell tales on another 
fellow. 

The average soldier feels that he must not disgrace 
his uniform, must be loyal to his country at any cost, 
must be brave even unto death where duty calls him. 
And he is doing very fine things to-day on these few 
rules. 

The average decent woman has her minimum 
standard. She must be chaste, must care for her 
husband and children, must send her children to 
church even if she does not go herself. 

The average business man's conscience insists that 
he must be honest, must live a decent life, must care 
for his wife and children, and if he can afford it must 
give something to charity or to patriotic funds. 

Even the selfish idle rich has his little works of the 
Law. He must be polite, he must live respectably, 
he must obey the code of honour in his set, he must 
rigidly at any cost pay his gambling debts — debts 
of honour he calls them — even if he be careless about 
other debts. 

Each is most conscientious about this little standard 
of his and quite pleased with himself when he keeps 
up to it. Of course he adds a little more to these 
foundation laws. But if he be the man that I am 



WORKS OF LAW IN THE 20th CENTURY 147 

thinking of, he never thinks of adding the supreme 
thing, God. His heart is in no personal relation to 
God. There is no love to God, no gratitude to God, 
no sense of duty to God, no dissatisfaction with his 
life, no deep penitence, no passionate prayer, no long- 
ing that God's Holy Spirit should lead him to any- 
thing higher than this. 

His conscience is strict about these three or four 
life laws. So far it is good. But his conscience is 
quite content with that little standard. He shuts out 
all the light that would lead him to a higher standard. 
He is nervously afraid of the very idea of aiming at 
the highest and surrendering his life to the guidance 
of God wherever it might lead. No. He feels satis- 
fied with himself at present by keeping his standard 
low. He might be very much dissatisfied with him- 
self if he let God raise his standard. And he does not 
want to be dissatisfied. He feels all right — God, he 
thinks, has nothing to complain of. 

VII 

This is the modern man's ' Justification by the 
Works of the Law/ without thinking of the relation 
of his heart to God. He is, in short, the Pharisee, 
but he is much lower than the Pharisee. For he has 
made himself a low standard. The Pharisee at least 
had a difficult standard. " I fast twice in the week. 
I give tithes of all that I possess." He has a much 
easier rule. 

God wants to lift him up to be the noblest thing in 
the Universe. But he prefers to live down with his 
low little standard. 

I am thinking of some such men that I have met 



148 THE MASTER BUILDER 

at a time when one aims at heart-to-heart talks — 
when the man perhaps is dying and one wants to 
try and diagnose his spiritual condition. Here is a 
frequent answer, " Well, I don't think God has any- 
thing against me. I have never cheated in busi- 
ness nor wilfully injured another. I am not an extor- 
tioner nor unjust, nor an adulterer, nor even as this 
publican. I fast twice — no I don't do that. I give 
tithes of — no I do not. But any way I respect religion. 
I'm not an unbeliever, I go to Church sometimes if 
it is not raining or if I am not tired. I am quite 
conscientious about this." 

But if one asks him, " What of the relation of 
your heart to God ? Have you any love to the Father 
in Heaven. Any gratitude to the Blessed Lord? 
Would it make much difference to you if the story 
of the Gospel were proved false? Are you very dis- 
satisfied and penitent? Are you praying that God 
would lift you up to be a noble servant of Christ 
to your life's end ?" He smiles at it. ' That is all 
high-falutin sort of parson's talk. I think I am doing 
very well." 

Here is the easy modern edition of the religion of 
the deeds of the Law. It is an easy religion. Like the 
children's lesson books, 'French without tears,' 'Latin 
without tears,' this is Religion without tears. It 
does not cost much and it does not accomplish much. 
It makes a man satisfied and independent of Christ. 
But oh, it shuts out the light from Heaven and 
keeps him from the beautiful progressive growth of 
soul which God designs for him. The man is shut- 
ting out the Christ out of his life and his soul is grow- 
ing flabby and withered and rotten within him. 



WORKS OF LAW IN THE 20th CENTURY 149 

VIII 

Let no one misunderstand or misrepresent this 
teaching. I read an infidel book lately which rep- 
resents the Gospel as teaching that doing right was 
less important than believing something about Christ — 
that trying to do good works might land you in hell. 
Intelligent Christians do not talk like that. The Bible 
says it was for good works God created us. " God 
created us unto good works" — "shew me thy faith by 
thy works," " be careful to maintain good works," etc. 

The contrast I present to you is not between right 
conduct and right belief — but between the man who 
apart from any heart relation to God makes his own 
few self-chosen external rules and considers that obe- 
dience to them justifies him with God and is quite 
satisfied with himself — between him I say and the man 
who, feeling his own sin, longing to rise to the highest, 
finds out how God loves, finds out how Christ cares, 
and then casts himself on him in humble trust, to be 
enabled to do such good works as he could never 
dream of by himself, and to go on to an eternity of 
such beautiful deeds for ever and ever. 

And I say deliberately that any man living in the 
light of Christianity as we are, who is not penitently 
praying to get nearer to God, who is contentedly keep- 
ing his few rules of decent respectability and making 
them his cold legal claim on the Eternal Father — 
should have ringing in his ears the solemn warning 
of Scripture: " By the deeds of the Law shall no 
flesh living be justified. Except your righteousness 
exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees 
ye shall in no case enter the Kingdom of Heaven." 
That is Paul's attitude in his fight for religion. 



PART IV 
TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 



PART IV 
TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 



CHAPTER XV 

Going up to Jerusalem 

It is the month of February, a.d. 58. Paul has 
been nine months in Europe. He has accomplished 
great things in that time. He has laid the founda- 
tions of the Catholic Church of the West. 

One would think that he might rest now. He has 
had a hard life. He has done a great work. He is 
growing old. The time of youthful enthusiasm ought 
to be over for him. But some men never grow old at 
heart. To Paul all that he has accomplished seems only 
a beginning. He is dreaming of far greater doings in 
the future. 

His vision is expanding to the far horizon — to the 
limits of the Roman Empire, to the shores of Spain, 
to the Pillars of Hercules where the world ends. Even 
there he means to carry the banner of the Cross com- 
mitted to him by Jesus on the Damascus road. And 
the centre of his vision is the Imperial City, Rome. 

We have hints of his great project in the epistle 
which he has just sent to Rome. 

I have long wished to see you. I hope soon to 

151 



a 



152 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

come to you on my way to Spain. I must first go to 
Jerusalem to meet the chiefs of the Church and to bring 
my collections for the poor. When that is done I hope 
to start for Rome. If it be God's will. But pray for 
me earnestly that I may be delivered from the dangers 
before me in Judea that I may come with joy to you, 
that through the will of God I together with you may 
find rest." 

Yes! Paul, through the will of God you will come 
to them in Rome, but in a way that you little dream 
of to-day. And through the will of God you will find 
rest in Rome — the rest that will come to you through 
the headsman's axe! 

II 

Now in this month of February, 58, he is starting 
from Corinth on the beginning of that expedition. 
But first he must go to Jerusalem to meet the heads of 
the Church and to bring the moneys collected for the 
poor. Young Timothy is with him, and Luke and Tro- 
phimus the Ephesian and four other delegates from the 
churches of Asia, probably bringing with them the 
moneys collected in their towns. 

First to Jerusalem. He wants to get there in time 
for the Passover. It is not easy to get a passage just 
now, for all over the land the caravans are on the 
march, the Passover pilgrims are assembling. Down 
at the harbour he finds quite a crowd of them already 
waiting for a ship. 

And soon he finds that it is an ugly crowd and dan- 
gerous. Black looks and muttered curses greet him 
as he comes. There is no time when a fanatic crowd 
is so excited and inflamed as just before a religious 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 153 

festival, and if Paul had been a wiser man he would 
have chosen some other port than that of Corinth, 
where he was so well known and so well hated by 
the Jews. They are already pointing him out, the 
renegade who speaks blasphemous words against 
Moses and the Law. They are biding their time. A 
crowded ship on a dark night is a capital place to knife 
a man or hustle him overboard. Paul's friends get 
wind of the treacherous plot, so they have to decide 
to start overland through Macedonia. 

It is an ominous beginning for the great expedition 
to the ends of the earth. And there is no chance now 
of being in Jerusalem for the Passover. However, it 
is a pleasant journey with pleasant friends, in the beau- 
tiful springtime just before Whitsuntide, and it takes 
them through towns where dear old friends will meet 
them. I think Paul got sick with his chronic disease 
when they came to Philippi, for I find that he and the 
physician Luke had to stay there while their party 
passed on to Troas. If so, it was not a bad place to fall 
sick, amid the best beloved of his converts, Lydia and 
the jailer and all the rest of them. 

Which suggests to us not to think gloomily of Paul's 
life in spite of its dangers and troubles. Such friend- 
ships around him everywhere made a large compensa- 
tion. I wish we had more time for such friendships in 
this great lonely city of ours. There are many pleasant 
friendships in the careless world, but it is no cant to 
say that Christian men's friendships grow closer in 
the common tie of friendship with their Lord, and 
the hope in common that their friendships shall be 
eternal in the boundless life of the hereafter. True 
friendships are what give colour to life. Someone once 



154 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

asked Charles Kingsley what he was most thankful 
for in his life, " That God gave me friends/' he said. 

So with Paul. He had no wife or child or family 
ties. But God gave him friends. If few men had 
more bitter enemies than he, few men also had more 
devoted friends. And that meant happiness in spite 
of all his troubles. 

ill 

He spent Passover week in Philippi. Passover 
fell that year on Thursday, April 7th, and the Chris- 
tian Jews were keeping the festival. But no longer 
as a mere Jewish celebration. Already Paul had put 
into it the Christian meaning, " Christ our Passover 
is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast." 
It was the beginning of our present-day celebration of 
Good Friday and Easter. 

Next day he and Luke left Philippi and five days 
later caught up their friends at Troas, that classic 
ground by the plains of Troy from which he had started 
last year on this European trip. Here they had all 
to wait for a ship till Monday the 18th. This gave 
them a Sunday in Troas, and Luke has jotted down in 
his diary an interesting picture of their Church service 
in the upper room. You feel that the picture is by an 
eyewitness. You see the picture before him, the 
eager assembly, the many lights, the windows flung 
open in the warm night. You see him uneasily watch- 
ing the lad Eutychus in the upper window dozing and 
dropping asleep, and as the sermon goes on borne 
down by deep sleep, till with a startled cry, before 
anyone can reach him, he falls out through the open 
window three stories high. An upper window ledge 
is not a good place for sleeping in sermon time. 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 155 

There is not much sleep for anyone else that night, 
for the ship sails at dawn. After their Communion 
service together, Paul sees his comrades on board and 
starts off alone on a twenty-mile walk to catch them 
up at the next port. He wants a long walk. He 
wants a rest from people for the present. He wants 
to be alone for quiet thought and communion with 
God. There is much to think about. The events 
of the last few weeks have shaken his confidence. 
Forebodings are in his heart that his great expedition 
to Spain is falling through. Somehow he feels that 
the brightest days of his ministry are probably over, 
and that the future holds hard times for him. Down 
the cemetery road, past the hot springs of Troas, 
through the oak woods, he wends his way, deep in 
thought all day, and at night catches up the ship at 
Assos. 

IV 

On an evening ten days later we pick up his party 
again as they enter the harbour at Miletus. The 
ship had passed Ephesus without stopping, but there 
was time at Miletus to send a messenger to summon 
at least the presbyters of Ephesus to meet him. Next 
day they arrive at Miletus and here we get another 
of the graphic pictures in Luke's diary. w 

There is the ship unloading her cargo, the sailors 
shouting and singing at their work. Out on the sands 
a sad little group of clergy gathered to say good-bye to 
their master and friend. Paul is speaking: 

' I leave Ephesus in your charge. Take heed to 
yourselves/' he says, " and to the flock over which the 
Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the church 



156 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

of God which he hath purchased by his own blood. 
Give to them of your best. Remember the words of 
the Lord Jesus how he said, * It is more blessed to give 
than to receive/ Ye know how I bore myself among 
you since the first day that I set foot in Asia, teaching 
publicly and from house to house repentance towards 
God and faith towards Our Lord Jesus Christ. Now 
I am going away from you, not knowing what is before 
me, saving that in every place the Holy Spirit testifies 
that bonds and afflictions await me. What matter 
provided I finish my course faithfully and the ministry 
which I received of the Lord Jesus. So I have to say 
good-bye to you, a long good-bye, for ye among whom I 
lived proclaiming the glad news shall see my face again 
no more. Be watchful. Be faithful. Farewell to 
you all. I commend you to God and to the word of 
his grace who is able to build you up and give you an 
inheritance among them that are sanctified. Now let 
us kneel down and pray to him to have you in his 
holy keeping." 

And they all kneel down sobbing through the prayer, 
" sorrowing most of all for the word which he had said 
that they shall see his face again no more." 

So they parted, " tearing themselves away," and 
again we realize how men held him in their hearts, 
and how deeply he meant those affectionate greetings 
in his letters to the churches when he was far away 
from them. 



Another week of delightful sailing in those sunny 
April days past Cos and Rhodes on its island of roses, 
on to Patara, where they change ship for Palestine. 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 157 

The third day he can see from the deck the highlands 
of Cyprus open up before him — Cyprus, the home of 
his old friend Barnabas, now with his Lord in the spirit 
land. " Ah, Barnabas, I wish I had been less im- 
patient with you that day at Antioch!" 

They spent a week in Tyre, famous in Jewish pro- 
phecy. There the brethren warned him of the danger 
in Jerusalem, and there was repeated the scene at 
Miletus, " they all with their wives and children 
accompanied us out of the city, and kneeling down on 
the beach we prayed together and said good-bye." 

VI 

Now they are in beautiful Caesarea, the capital and 
seat of government — only three days from Jerusalem. 
There are fourteen days to spare before Pentecost, 
and it is pleasanter to spend them here with friends 
than in Jerusalem, where his reception is more doubt- 
ful. Paul is the guest of Philip the evangelist, a man 
after his own heart, with his own broad views. We 
remember when Philip was ordained one of the Seven 
Deacons — when he dared to preach the Gospel to 
the heretic Samaritans — when he baptized the black 
eunuch of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, and, 
leaving him, preached from town to town till he came 
to Caesarea. That was twenty years ago, and here he 
is in Caesarea still with his four daughters, the virgins 
that did prophesy. 

What memories he would bring back to Paul as 
they sit together in the evenings talking over old times 
— that day when they had been present at the stoning 
of Stephen, the time when Paul had chased him and 
his comrades from Jerusalem, and how their loving 



158 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

Lord from the heavens had overruled all for good, how 
Paul's pursuit of the disciples had spread the Gospel 
more widely, how Philip, far away from the narrowing 
influences of Jerusalem, was more in touch with Paul's 
wide views than were the Christians at headquarters. 
And as they talked, young Luke was surely lis- 
tening and making voluminous notes for his book. It 
was good for Paul to get these restful days in Caesarea, 
the last he should have of such restful days for many a 
year to come. Even these were broken by warnings 
of coming dangers, and friends weeping and beseeching 
him not to go on. But Paul's purpose was fixed. He 
saw where duty lay. Like his Master before him amid 
similar warnings, " he steadfastly set his face to go to 
Jerusalem." 



CHAPTER XVI 
Riot and Arrest 

Another week has passed. Paul is in Jerusalem. 
The last visit of his life to the Holy City. And the 
saddest. He had come with boyish eagerness in the 
old college days long ago. He had come back, a 
man shaken by many emotions after his vision on the 
Damascus road. He had come up with Barnabas to 
win his battle for the freedom of the Church. Now he 
is come for the last time with foreboding in his heart 
' ready not only to be bound but, if necessary, to 
die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." 

He is staying with Mnason of Cyprus, an " old 
disciple " who has a house in Jerusalem. Through his 
window he can see the Pentecost crowds in the street, 
the crowds that he had been accustomed to since early 
days. " Parthians and Medes and Elamites and 
dwellers in Mesopotamia, in Pontus and Asia." And 
Asia! He does not like the look of that crowd from 
Asia. There is a group of them passing now, easily 
recognized in their bright national costume so familiar 
to him in his three years at Ephesus. He could very 
well do without these, his bitterest opponents, the 
bigots who hated him and stirred up riots against him 
everywhere he went. He knows very well that they will 
be his chief danger in Jerusalem. The less he sees of 
them the better. 

II 

But he cannot avoid them. For the brethren at 
Jerusalem have put him in an embarrassing position. 

159 



160 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

On the whole, one feels disappointed at their attitude. 
Just a week ago he had entered the city. They do 
not seem to have provided hospitality for him, the 
greatest churchman of them all. He had a pleasant 
welcome from friends on his arrival. But the next 
day was a serious ordeal when he appeared before the 
assembled church. Some of them were in full agree- 
ment with him, but he knew that many were quite 
out of sympathy with his broad views about the Gen- 
tiles. They could not agree that the despised heathen 
should be received into the Church on a level with the 
ancient people of God. So Paul was not at all received 
with the unanimous enthusiasm that we should have 
expected. 

He had brought them a large money collection for 
the poor which had taken years of thought and execu- 
tion. He gave them a glowing account of his work 
for the Lord — of all the heathen converted to Christ, 
all the important churches that he had founded in the 
West. But I think Luke his biographer is disappointed 
at their response, judging from the entry in his diary. 

True, " they glorified God." They could hardly 
help doing that. Then immediately they chill him 
with the cautious advice: " Brother, you must be 
careful. Our people here are very much concerned 
about your teaching. You not only abolish all dis- 
tinction between the Gentiles and the chosen people; 
you seem even to go farther. You speak very un- 
guardedly. They think you are overthrowing Moses 
and the Law. Now be advised by us. Be very cau- 
tious. Clear yourself of suspicion. Do not get 
religion into discredit. Shew yourself publicly a good 
Jew. Here are four poor men who have a Jewish 
vow. Take charge of them publicly. Be their sponsor 



RIOT AND ARREST 161 

and go to the Temple with them daily, paying their 
charges for shaving their heads and other purification 
ceremonies. So shall men see that you are loyal to 
the Jewish rules." 

Ill 

No doubt it was wise advice, if only it had come 
at some other time, not just then when his pulses were 
throbbing with the excitement of his great story of the 
triumph of Christ amongst the heathen. If you want 
a favourable hearing for your doctrine you must not 
antagonize people unnecessarily. The Church was 
in a critical position at this transition time from 
Judaism to Christianity. If the church at Jerusalem 
at this crisis had repudiated Paul the results might 
have been disastrous. The Church always needs not 
only eager enthusiasts, but also farsighted, prudent 
men, and it was God's good providence that a wise, 
cautious man like James should be at the helm just 
then. 

Still, it is possible to overdo caution; and it is 
possible to put it at the wrong time. One can imagine 
the disappointment of Paul after his passionate speech 
about the glory of Christ and the conversion of count- 
less heathen, that their prominent thought should be 
the soothing of popular prejudice by conformity in 
what to him were but the " weak and beggarly ele- 
ments." As if the Church of England thirty years ago 
should meet a famous missionary who had come back 
in triumphant enthusiasm to tell of a continent won 
for Christ, " Brother, we want you to be in church to- 
morrow that the people may see you wear the black 
gown in the pulpit or that they may see you taking 
the Eastward Position at the altar." 



162 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

Of course Paul could conscientiously do it. It was 
quite right for him as a Jew and it might conciliate 
Jewish Christians even though it might also be mis- 
understood by Gentile converts. What seems to have 
been forgotten was that it would put him in unde- 
sirable prominence amongst the excited fanatic Jews 
from every land who were daily crowding the temple 
courts. Especially those Jews from Asia who had 
been pursuing him with slanders and murderous plots 
all through his ministry. 

IV 

On the seventh day they got him — those Jews 
from Asia. That morning they had suddenly recog- 
nized him in the streets walking with his Gentile 
friend Trophimus the Ephesian, and now they see him 
in the temple with his four poor men and they are but 
too ready to suspect that he had brought in the Gen- 
tile into the holy place. He had not done anything 
of the kind, but suspicious people will believe any- 
thing. Straightway the fierce hatred is flashing in 
their eyes and with a wild shout of rage the men of 
Asia are upon him. "Men of Israel, help! This is 
the wretch that teaches everywhere against Moses and 
the Law and the Temple of God. Now he has brought 
Gentiles into the temple and polluted the holy place ! ' 

The defilement of the temple was the unspeak- 
able crime. Even the Roman authorities had to be 
most careful about that. In a moment the rumours 
had spread among the fanatic crowd, and in another 
moment they have rushed him. He is struck to the 
ground and flung violently down the steps through 
the Beautiful Gate. And straightway the gates are 
shut behind him, lest the Temple should be desecrated 



RIOT AND ARREST 163 

by murder. The murder does not matter so much 
provided it is done outside. Ah, Paul, it will go hard 
with you now unless the Christ of the Damascus 
road be watching you! There is no mercy in that 
trampling mob now that they have got you down. 

But his time has not yet come. The Roman police 
are well trained in riots, and before he well has time to 
commend his soul to God he hears the sharp military 
command and the rush of armed men who lifted him 
in their arms as they beat back the crowd. In spite 
of their quickness he was nearly torn from them, 
and only that line of armed men, that line of bright, 
flashing steel on the stairs kept them from following 
into the barracks. 

Behind that line of steel the chief captain, Clau- 
dius Lysias, looks at his prisoner all bruised and 
bleeding but calm and undaunted as he faces the crowd. 
Paul had been close to death too often to be much dis- 
concerted. Calm and undaunted he turns to the chief 
captain. 

" May I speak unto thee, Captain? " 

"What! Can you speak Greek? I thought you 
were that rascal Egyptian who led the Passover riots 
last year whom we chased from the city with his band 
of assassins! " 

" No, I am a Jew, a citizen of Tarsus. I beseech 
thee for leave to speak to the people." 

Surely an unexpected request from a man whom 
just now they had been trampling to death. But 
after all they were his own people and he longed to 
help them. " Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer 
for Israel is that they should be saved." 

Evidently, Claudius Lysias is impressed. A brave 
man is quick at recognizing a brave man. He is 



164 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

curious too to see the result of this speech. Perhaps 
it might disperse the crowd for him without further 
bloodshed. But at any rate he will take no chances. 
He will keep that line of steel guarding the stairs. 



Paul steps forward. His compelling personality 
and the sound of his words in their native tongue 
grips the crowd at once and " immediately there is 
a great silence. " 

" Brethren, I am a Jew like yourselves, Like you, 
I fiercely rejected the claim of Jesus to be the Messiah. 
Many of you remember how I hated His name and per- 
secuted His followers as you do to-day. What changed 
me? I will tell you." In simple, graphic words he 
tells the story of his life crisis when the Christ of God 
appeared to him in glory on the Damascus road. " ' I 
am Jesus, whom thou persecutest! ' In that solemn 
hour He commissioned me from Heaven to proclaim 
the Righteous One whom I had seen and heard. 
How could I resist him after that? " 

Up to this he holds his audience spellbound. It 
was a fascinating story and quite new to most of them. 
But what more had Jesus said to him? " He said to 
me, ' The Jews will not receive thy testimony about 
me.' He said, ' Depart, for I will send thee far hence 
unto the Gentiles!' " 

Then in a moment pandemonium broke loose. 
The Gentile to be put in the place of the Jew! They 
went wild with anger. " Down with the renegade! 
Down with the traitor! Away with such a fellow from 
the earth! It is not fit that he should live! ' 

And Claudius Lysias thought that it was just as 
well that he had kept that line of steel upon the stairs. 



RIOT AND ARREST 165 

VI 

But Claudius Lysias was vexed and disappointed. 
For Paul, instead of quieting the crowd had roused 
them into raving lunatics. Of course, he could not 
understand Paul's speech. What had he said? What 
was the trouble? "Take him in and strip him and 
examine him by scourging. We must get to the 
bottom of this, somehow. ,, 

Paul held his tongue as they bared his back and tied 
his hands for the torture. The rough Roman police 
would not understand him. But when an officer 
passed, he quietly asked, "Is it lawful for you to scourge 
a Roman citizen uncondemned ? " 

" What ! A Roman citizen I " 

If there was one thing more than another promi- 
nent in the police regulations, it was the respect due 
to a man who could utter the proud boast " Civis 
Romanus sum." Claudius Lysias is hurriedly called 
and with new respect for his prisoner and apprehension 
in his heart that he had maltreated a Roman citizen, 
he delivers Paul from the torture. 

But he must try to understand the case. So next 
day he invites the Jewish Sanhedrin and places Paul 
before them. Nothing comes of it. There is too much 
tension. Scarce had Paul begun his defence when the 
High Priest commanded to smite him on the mouth. 
Then very naturally Paul lost his temper. One only 
wonders that he kept it so long. " God shall smite 
thee, thou whited wall who sittest there to judge 
me according to the law and commandest me to be 
smitten contrary to the law! " 

He had not recognized that it was the High Priest, 
probably through his defective sight. But some 
of the judges must have enjoyed the thrust. The 



166 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

" whited wall ,: * struck home in that company which 
knew the old hypocrite High Priest so well. Then, 
Paul, seeing that the council was composed of Phari- 
sees and Sadducees and that in the present temper 
of the assembly there was no chance of a fair hearing, 
cleverly divides his opponents and plays them off 
against each other. " Men and brethren, I am a 
Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee, of the hope of the 
Resurrection I am called in question." Straightway 
the Pharisees swing around to his side in order to have 
a hit at their Sadducee opponents. The whole meet- 
ing is in uproar and the chief captain has again to carry 
Paul off by force. 

On the whole, Paul does not shew up to his usual 
high level on this occasion. Critics have contrasted 
his attitude with the quiet, silent dignity of Jesus at 
his trial. It is not a fair criticism. It is expecting 
too much of the man. For Paul was not Jesus. And 
in the long, splendid record of that life to which the 
Spirit of God had raised him, one needs a reminder 
sometimes that he was only human like ourselves. 
That is the comfort of such biographies. If God's 
grace could so ennoble a poor passionate human struggler 
who was only a man like myself, may I not hope that 
He will also accomplish something worth while in me? 

VII 

I see Paul, that night, in his prison cell. His 
position is now very serious. Only the strong hand 
of the Roman police kept back the powerful faction 
that sought his life. And the Roman police must not 
interfere too much with that jealous people. They 
had got into trouble more than once for doing so. 
It was a bad time for Paul. Imprisonment and death 



RIOT AND ARREST 167 

face him. His enthusiastic scheme for carrying Christ's 
gospel to Rome and to the ends of the empire seems frus- 
trated. He has passed through two days of terrible 
strain and he knows that the next day has more trouble 
in store. Most of us in his position would have gone 
to bed gloomily in that barrack cell. I dare say that 
Luke and Trophimus and Mnason, his host, had an 
anxious night thinking about him. I dare say Paul, 
too, felt despondent. It was only human. But I 
have no doubt that he took his despondency to the 
right place and told God all about it before he went 
to bed. So he could sleep quietly. 

Many of us, I trust, have that habit, morning and 
evening, of spending some time with God upon the holy 
mount telling Him of our plans and hopes and cares and 
anxieties and failings, and commending our lives to 
His loving care. We can understand why he slept 
quietly. As when the waves are tossing on the surface 
of the ocean the depths below are calm and untroubled, 
so when this man's outer life was harassed and dis- 
turbed, his inner life was hid with Christ in God. 
That is the secret of a Christian man's peace and " a 
stranger intermeddleth not with it. If God be 
with us, who can be against us? ' If Christ approveth 
who is he that condemneth? 

And in his sleep in the visions of the night the Lord 
stood by him. If the Lord stood by him it did not 
greatly matter if men refused to do so. If we lived 
as close to Christ, perhaps we too should have such 
visions. "Cheer up, Paul! Be of good cheer. You 
have borne witness faithfully for me in Jerusalem, you 
shall also bear witness for me in Rome." 

Think what it meant to that desponding man. 
If all men were treating you with insult and contempt 



168 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

and all life looked dark, what a pleasure if even a 
passing friend greeted you kindly. How it would 
bring tears to your eyes if some important person 
should clap you on the shoulder, " You are doing the 
right thing, my friend, I am heartily with you." But 
if it was the one whose approval was your highest 
ambition; if it was the eternal Christ, your beloved 
Master and Friend ! And besides — " You shall also 
bear witness for me in Rome." Then, after all, per- 
haps his great expedition is not quite beyond hope. 
At any rate, the Lord has said he should bear witness 
in Rome. 

Never forget that inner secret of Paul's life, the 
constant realizing of the close presence of his Lord. 
The whole value of this biography is lost if we forget 
Christ in thinking of His servant, if in admiring his 
faith and courage and endurance we lose sight for a 
moment of the secret of it all. He lived in Christ's 
presence. Behind, over the heads of priests and gov- 
ernors and howling mobs, he could always see Jesus. 
He sought only His approval. He knew Him for his 
friend in life or in death. In life he looked to Him for 
salvation and grace and comfort and help. " Not I, 
but the grace of God which was in me." In death he 
looked to him for the joy of the hereafter. " I desire 
to depart and be with Christ. I am persuaded that 
He is able to keep that which I have committed to 
Him against the Great Day." 

Therefore his peace flowed like a river, the river 
whose streams make glad the city of God. God give 
us grace to live that life in some degree at least. For 
if we could but live thus close to our Lord we should 
not have a trouble in the world but that we did not 
love Him enough and trust Him enough. 



CHAPTER XVII 
Four Cesarean Pictures 

Next morning in the barracks Paul is seated in his 
cell with a new happy light in his eyes as memory runs 
over that vision of the night, when suddenly he hears 
hurried footsteps in the corridor — his cell door is 
flung open and his nephew, the son of his married sister 
in Jerusalem, rushes in all gasping and excited. 

" What is the matter, my lad? " 

" Murder is the matter, Uncle Paul! I have only 
just got ahead of the deputation who are coming up to 
interview the chief captain. They want him to bring 
you down again for the completing of yesterday's 
conference. But it is all a treacherous plot. If you 
leave these barracks you are a dead man. At a meet- 
ing last night more than forty of them have bound 
themselves under a curse not to eat or drink till they 
have killed you, and they are all lurking about the 
lanes near the barracks as I came in." 

Evidently the lad was in a position to know. Which 
brings back our earlier conjectures about the attitude 
of Paul's family. I notice that in his visits to Jerusa- 
lem he never stays at his sister's house. I suggest 
that her husband was in the hostile camp — that he 
had been at that meeting last night and expressed 
his feeling against the plot when he got home. A 
man might object strongly to his brother-in-law with- 
out wishing to see him treacherously slain. And a 
woman, at such a time, would forget all her brother's 



170 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

faults and think only of the little Saul who played with 
her long ago in the old home in Tarsus. I think of her 
in the early morning stealing up to her son's bed and 
sending him post-haste off to the barracks. 

II 

Paul immediately sends the lad to the chief captain, 
and thus Claudius Lysias gets to know of the precious 
plot as he is preparing to meet those honourable gentle- 
men waiting in the anteroom. I wonder if the Roman 
officer kept his temper with them better than Paul had 
done yesterday. 

The chief captain is a good deal worried over the 
matter. This prisoner of his is becoming an embarrass- 
ing responsibility. He is responsible for his safety as 
a Roman citizen. What with threatening mobs and 
scheming priests and fanatics whose plots stop not 
short of assassination, he will be lucky if he can get 
him safe out of Jerusalem. Secretly he makes his 
plans. Under cover of the night we hear the tramp of 
horses and the soldiers assembling in the barrack 
square, nearly 500, so serious is the danger. All 
night the escort travels to the government head- 
quarters at Caesarea. You remember Paul had been 
staying in Caesarea a week since with Philip the dea- 
con. Philip and his daughters and the friends who had 
warned Paul of this danger last week see their prophe- 
cies fulfilled as their friend comes in bound, with a 
cavalry troop guarding him. 

The governor is in his office and the officer of the 
guard hands him the chief captain's letter: 

Claudius Lysias unto his excellency Felix, sendeth greeting. 

This man was seized by the Jews and was about to be slain 
by them when I rescued him, having heard that he was a Roman 
citizen. I found him accused of certain questions of their law 



FOUR CESAREAN PICTURES 171 

but of nothing worthy of death or of bonds. And discovering 
a dangerous plot against him I sent him to thee forthwith, charg- 
ing his accusers to go down and speak before thee. 

The Governor looks up from the letter: 
" Of what province is this man? " 
" Cilicia, your excellency. " 

" I will hear the case when his accusers come. 
Meantime let him be kept in Herod's guardroom." 

in 

Thus began the Caesarean imprisonment. 

Two full years of the few that yet remained to him 
Paul was to waste in that prison in Caesarea. It was 
a weary time. True, they were pretty good to him, 
these Romans. They always were. There was some- 
thing in the brave, quiet man that seemed to appeal 
to these rough pagan soldiers. c Treat him kindly/ 
said Felix, ' and let his friends come and visit him.' So 
Philip and the friends in Caesarea could come to see 
him and Timothy and the travelling companions 
whom he had left in Jerusalem might sometimes come, 
and Luke had come down to stay near him and watch 
over his health. 

I wonder what Paul did with himself during these 
two years. We hear of no epistles written as in his 
later imprisonment. I can guess what Luke was doing. 
I always think of Luke as going about with two man- 
uscript books in his baggage — one of them his diary 
of his travels with Paul, some day to be completed 
as the Acts of the Apostles — the other a book much 
nearer completion, the notes for his coming gospel 
dedicated to Theophilus. 

There was not much material for the diary during 
these two monotonous years, and, perhaps, for that 
reason the few things that did happen get rather dis- 



172 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

proportionate space and prominence. Perhaps, too, 
he wanted to offset the Jewish opinion of his hero by 
showing how favourably the unprejudiced outsiders 
thought of him. He likes telling of the impression 
made on Claudius Lysias and Felix and Festus and 
King Agrippa and Julius the centurion. 

St. Luke sketches for us in his diary four vivid little 
pictures of these Caesarean days. This is the first: 

It is the court room of the castle. Felix, the 
governor, is on the judgment seat and Ananias, the 
high priest, is present among the accusers. He has 
brought down a Jerusalem lawyer to conduct the pros- 
ecution of the man who had called him a " whited 
wall." The Pharisees and Sadducees have laid aside 
their quarrel and are present in court combined against 
the heretic. 

Tertullus, the attorney, opens his case for the 
prosecution by a fulsome eulogy of the judge. " The 
Jews are specially fortunate in having so noble and 
beloved a governor. " (Of course, he knows that 
Felix is the best hated governor they ever had. He 
had bullied their people and killed their high priest. 
But you cannot say that in the pleadings.) " It is 
really a shame to trouble your Excellency with this 
case. The Sanhedrin would have settled it them- 
selves only that Claudius Lysias had, in a high-handed 
way, taken the man out of their hands. The man is 
a pestilent fellow, a disturber of the peace, a profaner 
of the temple and a ringleader of the sect of the Naz- 
arenes, the followers of a fanatic, called Jesus, who was 
crucified by the late governor, Pontius Pilate, some 
years ago." 



FOUR CESAREAN PICTURES 173 



a 



That is our case, Your Excellency. The reverend 
gentlemen who are present will bear out what I have 
said." 

But Felix knows too much about those reverend 
gentlemen. He wants to hear what Paul has to say. 
The poor prisoner arises with the chains on his hands 
and at once holds the attention of the court. 

" I also am glad to have Your Excellency as judge, 
for from your long residence you are acquainted with 
Jewish affairs. I claim that the whole charge is false — 
all mere assertion. Where are the witnesses, the 
friends who knew me, the men of Asia who seized me? 
Why are they not here? Where are the people who 
saw me bring Gentiles into the temple? The truth 
is that twelve days ago I came up to Jerusalem to wor- 
ship at Pentecost and to bring moneys collected for 
the poor. These people found me purified in the tem- 
ple without crowd or tumult. They set on me and 
would have murdered me but for the interference of 
Claudius Lysias. I have done no wrong. I have 
nothing to confess but this, that after the way which 
they call heresy I worship the God of my fathers. I 
believe in the Messiah as looked for by the prophets 
and look forward with hope in God to the resurrec- 
tion of the dead." 

There is something very convincing in the attitude 
of an honest man standing out amongst shams and 
hypocrites, and Felix, though no honest man himself, 
evidently felt it. He knew very well what justice Paul 
would get if he were handed over to the Sanhedrin. 

" The case is postponed," he said, "for further evi- 
dence. Let the prisoner be put back and treat him 
kindly — let him have all possible freedom, and let his 
friends come to visit him." 



174 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

Evidently Paul had made a good impression on 
Felix. So he went back to his prison. And Luke, 
the beloved physician, came to attend him and to make 
more notes in that precious diary. 

v 

The next is a curious picture, strange and unex- 
pected. 

Paul is again before Felix. Or rather, Felix is 
before Paul. For Paul is now the dominant figure. 
This is no legal trial, but a private Court drawing-room 
called by Felix and his young bride, Drusilla, to hear 
the prisoner tell — of what think you? Of the faith 
of Jesus Christ for which he was in bonds! What an 
extraordinary summons! Surely Paul was as much 
surprised as we are. 

I dare say it arose from mere idle curiosity — a 
bored little company of the Governor's guests seeking 
some distraction to pass a dull evening. If there was 
anything more serious in it I do not believe it came from 
Felix at any rate. 

One wonders if it was the young bride Drusilla. 
She is a Jewess and may wish to hear the teaching 
of her famous fellow-countryman. Probably she has 
heard already about Jesus Christ, for she is daughter of 
that King Herod who persecuted the Church and killed 
St. James and in this very castle of Caesarea five 
years ago was eaten of worms and died. Perhaps 
she is curious about this religion that seems to make 
that poor prisoner so happy. I doubt if she is very 
happy herself. She is young and gay and very beauti- 
ful, as were all the women of her family, but this does 
not always bring happiness. And her life does not 
tend to happiness. Her morals are no better than those 



FOUR CESAREAN PICTURES 175 

of other Court ladies of the time. She is here to-day 
because this elderly profligate Felix, a man of very 
unsavoury reputation, has seduced her from her young 
husband and married her. So that neither she nor 
His Excellency are very respectable people from Paul's 
point of view. 

But Paul says nothing rude to her. When Paul 
denounces people they are usually men. God only 
knows what is in that girl's heart or why she 
wanted to hear him speak of the faith of Jesus 
Christ. Paul does not judge her. But she hears 
him speak very plainly of the sins common in that 
Court. Probably she has heard of John the Baptist 
before Herod, calling adultery by its right name, 
though the adulterer was a king, and losing his head 
for it. Here is another of the Baptist type. He has 
no thought of his own safety, only of his great message. 
He longs for her soul and all their souls. He feels him- 
self, as he told the Corinthians, " an ambassador for 
Christ beseeching men in Christ's stead, be ye recon- 
ciled to God, beseeching them that they receive not 
the grace of God in vain." I wish we clergy could 
always feel our position as keenly. We should make 
men listen then. 

Paul made them listen. We do not know what 
Drusilla felt, but as Paul reasoned of Righteousness 
and Temperance and the Judgment to come, Felix 
trembled. He had reason to tremble. Conscience 
had him by the throat. Many a scene of greed and 
treachery and lust and blood, of murdered men and 
dishonoured women are there in his past life for 
memory to call up for that Judgment to come. For 
Felix's record in history is infamous, and conscience 
tells him bitter things as he listens to Paul. 



176 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

But it is of no avail. Conscience is God's kind 
voice calling him to repentance. And for the moment 
it seems as if he wanted to repent. But like many 
another he does not want to repent just yet. " Go 
thy way, some other day at a more convenient season 
I will call thee again." 

Ah! some other day. We are all going to do great 
things some other day. Some other day we will 
repent and yield ourselves to Christ and conquer 
our evil habits and be wonderfully good people. 
Every time a man says that he makes it less likely 
that he will do it. Every time you are brought in 
contact with Christ and higher things, and put off 
to " a more convenient season " — makes it less prob- 
able that that convenient season will ever come. 
Every such refusal draws blood, as it were, on the 
spiritual retina. Every such refusal hardens the heart. 
There is no ice so hard as that which melts a little on 
the surface and hardens again when the sunlight 
departs. 

Ah Felix! that convenient season will never arrive 
for you. In a few months you will be cast out of your 
high position and vanish from history in obscurity 
and shame. That fair young wife will be swallowed 
up with her son in a terrible eruption of Mount Vesu- 
vius. Well for you both if you had given heed to Paul 
that day when he reasoned of Righteousness and Con- 
tinence and Judgment to come, and told you the 
meaning of the faith of Jesus Christ. 

VI 

The next scene is in the following year. The 
governor Felix is gone in disgrace to be tried in Rome 
on an accusation of the Jews, and to win favour with 



FOUR CESAREAN PICTURES 177 

his accusers he meanly threw them a sop as he departed 
by leaving Paul bound. So after his two weary years 
he is up again for trial before the new governor Festus. 
His enemies are more hopeful now. This governor 
is a new man. He does not know them as Felix did. 

But Festus is not quite so simple as they think. 
For when they innocently suggest that Paul should 
be sent back to Jerusalem where their assassins could 
easily reach him, " No," replies the governor, " Paul 
stays where he is. Bring your case before me here in 
Caesarea." 

So they are assembled again in the Great Hall of 
the Castle. But they are no better prepared than be- 
fore. The same wrangling and abuse and accusations 
without proof till Festus grew weary of the whole 
business and wanted to get rid of it. "Here, Paul, 
what do you say to this suggestion that you go back 
to Jerusalem where people understand these perplex- 
ing subtleties? Are you content to go back and there 
be tried before me?" 

Paul knows too well what that would mean. He 
is sick of these delays. He sees little hope since even 
the governor seems yielding now. Better risk every- 
thing to put an end to it. Instantly he throws out his 
challenge as a freeborn citizen of the Empire. " No, 
Your Excellency, I am not content, I stand here at 
Caesar's judgment seat where I ought to be judged. 
I am willing to die if adjudged guilty of wrong, 
but I am not going back to Jerusalem to be mur- 
dered. I am a Roman citizen. I appeal unto Caesar! ' 

There was no evading that appeal. It was the 
proud privilege of every Roman citizen that he could 
always on just cause appeal to the Emperor. So 
after consulting his assessors the governor pronounced 



178 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

the only possible sentence. " Hast thou appealed 
unto Caesar? Unto Caesar then thou shalt go." 

So the great case ended for the present and the 
Jews had to go home baffled, outmanoeuvred. And 
Paul wonderingly saw that in a far different way from 
what he had planned for himself the word of the Lord 
was to be fulfilled. 'Thou shalt one day go to bear 
witness for me in Rome.' 

VII 

How little we can tell how our prayers will be an- 
swered. For years Paul had desired and prayed that 
he might go to Rome. Now in the Providence of 
God he is to go, but as a prisoner in chains. It seemed 
a most disappointing answer. But we know better 
now. One of the greatest treasures of Church and 
people for 2000 years has been the noble group of 
epistles that Paul wrote from his prison in Rome 
which we might never have had at all if he had gone 
as he desired, as a busy, active missionary. 

It is a good thing to tell God all that we desire. 
Even if our prayers be foolish. God is not foolish. 
But it is a good thing, too, to leave the answer in His 
hands. Not to dictate the method of it or to say that 
if God does not answer as you expect you will cease 
to believe in prayer. For we are foolish children and 
don't know what is best. 

I had a friend once who told me a curious thing. 
For years he had kept in a book a sort of Debit and 
Credit account with God. On the left-hand page 
the things he had most earnestly prayed for, and 
opposite, the answers whenever they came. The 
result was very interesting. Sometimes the answers 
were opposite the prayers. Sometimes there was a 



FOUR CESAREAN PICTURES 179 

blank where no answer came, and he often saw later 
that that too was good. And sometimes the answer 
came in a form quite different from what he expected. 

I think that too would be Paul's experience. 
Years after this disappointing answer he writes to 
the Philippians from his Roman imprisonment. " I 
would have you to know that the things which have 
happened to me have fallen out rather unto the prog- 
ress of the gospel. " 

Pray to God, but leave the issue in His hands, for 
God knows best and God cares. 

VIII 

The fourth picture in Luke's diary is a curious 
duplication of what happened in Felix's day. While 
waiting for his despatch to Rome there is again a sort 
of public drawing-room trial to amuse some distin- 
guished guests of the governor. For King Agrippa, 
the son of Herod, with his wicked, profligate sister 
Bernice, the Lucrezia Borgia of her day, had come down 
in state to visit the new governor in the palace where 
their young sister Drusilla had been mistress a few 
months ago. In course of conversation one day, 
Festus mentioned this prisoner of his who was accused 
by the Jews on some stupid question of religion, " and 
of one Jesus who was dead whom Paul affirmed to 
be alive." 

King Agrippa had more connection with the matter 
than the governor knew — probably more than he knew 
himself. For Agrippa was a Jew, the last of the Herods, 
and the whole destinies of his house had been linked 
up with this Jesus whom Paul preached. His great- 
grandfather Herod was the man who had slaughtered 
the Innocents at Bethlehem to destroy the child Jesus. 



180 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

His uncle Herod was the man who sent John the 
Baptist to death and sent Jesus to Pilate with a 
scarlet robe of mockery on his shoulders. His father 
slew St. James and persecuted the church. Agrippa 
had some reason to know about this religion of Paul. 

" I would like to hear this man myself, ,, he said. 

" Well," replied the governor, " you shall hear him 
to-morrow." 

" So on the morrow," I read, "when Agrippa was 
come and Bernice with great pomp and were entered 
into the place of hearing with the chief captains and 
principal men of the city at the command of Festus, 
Paul was brought in. . . . And Agrippa said 
unto Paul, " Thou art permitted to speak for thy- 
self." And the prisoner arose with the chains on his 
hands before that brilliant assembly. He knew that 
nothing depended on this trial, since he had already 
appealed to Caesar. But it was another opportunity 
to speak for his Lord. 

" I think myself happy, King Agrippa, that I 
am to speak before a king who is my own country- 
man and knows of the prophecies and hopes of our 
nation. I am accused of believing in that Messiah 
whom the prophets, for ages, have looked forward to. 
I know that He has come and that God has raised Him 
from the dead whom Pilate crucified. You know 
the story, O King, better than His Excellency the 
Governor, who is but a stranger. Twenty years ago 
all Jerusalem was ringing with it, for these things were 
not done in a corner. 

" Why should it be thought impossible with you 
that God should raise the dead? I myself am no 
mere credulous enthusiast; I was more bitter than most 
men in my obstinate unbelief. I am known as the 



FOUR CESAREAN PICTURES 181 ] 

fiercest persecutor of the men who had been with Jesus, 
persecuting and slaying and compelling them to blas- 
pheme. Why do I believe? Because I was forced to 
believe. Because that risen Messiah in His glory 
appeared to me and commissioned me in His name." 

Then he repeats his oft-told story, how the Christ 
of God appeared to him on the Damascus road. " And 
He has sent me, O king, on a great mission to open 
men's eyes, to turn them from darkness to light and 
from the power of Satan unto God, that they might 
receive remission of their sins by faith that is in Him. 
Wherefore, O king, I was not disobedient to the 
heavenly vision. That is the cause of this persecu- 
tion and of the Jews going about to kill me. But 
here I stand and must always stand, testifying both to 
small and great what the prophets and Moses did say 
that the Christ must suffer and by the resurrection of the 
dead proclaim light to the people and to the Gentiles." 

In the midst of this passionate appeal Festus inter- 
rupts. He is impatient of this foolish talk about a 
crucified Jew risen from the dead. 

" Paul, you are beside yourself. Your great learn- 
ing has made you mad." 

" Nay, I am not mad, most noble Festus. The 
king will understand me. King Agrippa, you under- 
stand? You believe the prophets? I know that you 
believe them." 

But Agrippa is not convinced, or is ashamed to re- 
spond. In good-natured banter he laughingly replies. 

' With little persuasion, 1 Paul, you expect to make 
me a Christian. " 

1 We have to give up the familiar translation of the Authorized Version, 
the text of so many sermons, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." 
The Greek shows that this is no cry of a soul almost convinced, but the 
jest of a proud man who would scorn to believe. (See Revised Version.) 



182 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

But I can fancy the smile dying away as he hears 
the touching reply, in all sincerity, from that loving 
heart. 

" I would to God that whether by much or by little 
persuasion, not only thou, but all who hear me this 
day were such as I am except " — as he feels the chains 
rattle on his outstretched hand — " except these bonds." 

No doubt those proud pagan lords would smile at 
such a wish, but would not any poor follower of Jesus 
to-day understand it? Paul knew \he happiness and 
peace and hope in his own heart for this world and the 
world to come. He knew that life meant deeper and 
nobler things than ever entered these men's hearts to 
conceive. 

Do you wonder that he impressed them favourably ? 
Do you wonder that they should feel as they went 
back to their palace, this fanatic is at least a real man; 
that Agrippa should say to Festus as he departed, 
" We could set him at liberty to-day if he had not 
appealed unto Caesar?" 

So Paul went back to his prison to prepare for his 
voyage, and the governor went to his office to write 
his report to Rome, whose favourable tenor we may well 
believe had much to do with Paul's acquittal in his 
first trial before Nero, 



CHAPTER XVIII 
The Shipwreck 

We have now come to that portion of St. Luke's 
Diary known to us as the 27th chapter of the Acts of 
the Apostles, " the sailors' chapter ' which Nelson 
studied on his flagship the morning of the Trafalgar 
fight. It is suggested that Luke must have been a 
sailor or a ship's doctor before Paul first met him in the 
harbour of Troas. For sailors say that no landsman 
could have written so accurate a sea story. 

1 

A.D. 60. A late September morning in the har- 
bour of Cassarea with the sun flashing on the pikes and 
helmets of Roman soldiers. They are a troop of the 
Augustan Regiment — the " King's Own " as we should 
say — drawn up on the quay surrounding a group of 
prisoners in chains. Paul is one of the prisoners. As 
a Roman citizen on appeal to the Emperor he is doubt- 
less a man of some distinction amongst the other pris- 
oners, many of whom when they get to Rome will 
probably be flung to the lions in the arena. 

Julius, the centurion, is in charge of the escort. A 
kindly man is Julius the centurion, and a good friend 
to Paul. He has got to know him well during his 
imprisonment. He was probably one of the guard of 
honour when Agrippa and Bernice heard that generous 
appeal, " I wish to God that you were all such as I 
am — except these bonds." One would like to know 
whether Paul's religion appealed to Julius the centurion. 

J83 



184 ^ TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

There is a coasting ship of Adramytium waiting 
at the side. Soon the centurion has his charge on 
board, and Paul is at last started towards his goal of 
many years — to Rome. He knew he must go some 
time, since the Lord had willed it, but how little he 
expected to accomplish it like this — in chains. 

Not that he would face it gloomily. Paul was no 
pessimist. He knew it was God's leading. He knew 
he was in God's care. He longed to see the Imperial 
City and hoped to accomplish something for his Master 
there in the world's centre. He had an interesting 
and exciting adventure before him which would bring 
him face to face with the emperor of the known world. 
True, it might end in death. But that only meant a 
still more interesting and exciting adventure in that 
wondrous life of the hereafter. And besides, what 
would mean a good deal to Paul, he was not alone. 
Luke, " the beloved physician " and friend, was with 
him, and another old friend, Aristarchus, from Mace- 
donia. We see from his Roman epistle that he had 
many friends in that city. We see, too, in that epistle 
that he had sent salutations to his old comrades 
Aquila and Priscilla. So he would expect that dear 
old couple also to meet him in Rome. 

Things were not so bad, after all, in spite of fetters 
and dangers. There is always a bright side to a 
Christian man's troubles. With his friendships and 
hopes and his sense of God's presence and the quiet 
confidence with which he looks on death, the world has 
little power to keep men like Paul gloomy. 

ii 

Next day they reach Sidon, and Julius, the centu- 
rion, courteously treated Paul and sent him ashore on 



THE SHIPWRECK 185 

parole to visit his friends. A week later they reach 
Myra, where a great Alexandrian grain ship is at the 
wharf overtopping all the shipping in the harbour. 
This exactly suits the plans of the centurion, for the 
ship is one of the Egyptian grain fleet bound for Italy. 
Egypt, like Canada to-day, was one of the chief 
granaries of the Empire, and this is evidently one of 
the Government transports. So, notwithstanding the 
crowd already on board, Julius exercises his right as a 
Government officer and promptly tranships his com- 
pany. 

Better, perhaps, had he been less prompt, for the 
grain ship is clumsy and heavily laden, and the time 
of the winter storms is near. They are uneasy from 
the beginning. They start out on an ugly sea. They 
lumber along for many days hugging the shore, and 
when at last they have to venture out into the open 
they are glad to take refuge soon in the Cretan port of 
Fair Havens. 

Now they have to make a serious decision. It is 
death to venture into the raging storm outside. There 
is a strong feeling in favour of lying up where they are 
for the winter. But the captain of the ship thinks he 
can creep along the coast to Phenice, where there is a 
safer harbour, though at the risk of being blown out to 
sea. They never got to Phenice. When the south 
wind blew softly, the captain made his venture. But 
that " south wind blowing softly " played the traitor. 
Out beyond the headlands they see the coming tempest. 
In an hour the Euroclydon is upon them sweeping 
down from the Cretan hills threatening to blow the 
ship out of the water, and there is a treacherous rock- 
bound shore on the lee. So there is nothing for it but 
to run out into the open and scud before the gale. 



186 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

Then came a terrible time, never to be forgotten, 
when even the most experienced sailors abandoned 
hope. Luke writes in his diary: "All hope that we 
should be saved was taken away." The pressure on 
the great central mast wrenched the whole frame- 
work of the ship, and the pumps could not keep down 
the water in the hold. This was the chief danger in 
ships of that period, and in the midst of the mad storm 
they had to attempt the only remedy. They passed 
ropes under the keel undergirding the ship to prevent 
further opening of the seams. But it availed them 
little. The leaks gained on them. In desperation 
they threw out all they could to lighten the ship, and 
the next day they threw over all the spare gear. 

Then followed days of dark despair. Literally 
dark, for the sky above them was black as ink and 
neither sun nor stars for many days appeared, and 
still the storm howled and the huge ship was flung 
about helpless on the waves. 

It is an awful thing to know that death is sweeping 
down upon you hour by hour, to hear it coming with 
its hideous thunder, and yet, in the darkness to see 
nothing of your danger nor of the way out. There 
was no mariner's compass in those days — only the sun 
and stars to guide. They could take no observations 
of sun by day or stars by night. They knew not where 
the reefs were or the rockbound shore. Nerves were 
tightly on the strain. Any moment might mean death. 
And there were 276 people crowded together in the 
darkness and wet and bitter cold waiting for the end. 
So tense was the strain that they took no meals for 
days together. No one who has not been through such 
a time can realize what it meant, 



THE SHIPWRECK 187 

III 

In the midst of it all stood one man confident 
and calm. Not merely brave. There were other 
brave men on that ship who could die without whining 
about it. There are many brave men, thank God, 
even without religion, as some stories from the front 
abundantly testify. And I think bravery, even with- 
out religion, is a fine thing in God's sight. Finer, at 
any rate, than cowardice without religion. 

But confidence and calm at such times is a different 
thing, and for that one wants God. That only comes 
from consciousness of God's presence and God's love 
to all His poor children. That was what gave Paul 
the unshaken nerves, the steady hand, the heart beating 
evenly. He had been in three shipwrecks already. A 
night and a day he had tossed in the deep clinging to a 
spar. He had faced furious crowds and scourging and 
stoning. Now he seems facing certain death by drown- 
ing. And still his face is calm and his heart is brave, 
strengthened with God's presence in the inner man. 
Life had no terrors for the man who felt Christ beside 
him. Death had no fear for one who desired " to 
depart and be with Christ which is far better." 

IV 

That is set before us here as the attitude of a Chris- 
tian man facing death. Do you feel that it is too high 
an ideal, that you could never reach that life of calm ? 
I feel the same — and yet I think we are wrong. Paul's 
secret was that he lived much in prayer and commun- 
ion with God. Here in the midst of this terrified 
uproar I read that he found time for prayer and inter- 
course with his Lord, and that somehow assurance 
came to him that all would be well. 



188 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

You know as well as I — however little we may 
profit by it — that there is no other such help in the 
troubles of life as the habit of getting some little 
time at least every day to withdraw into the holy 
mount with God. The men who in every age have 
done most to brighten life and lift the world towards God 
have been the men who lived thus. It is only they who 
can really witness to the value of it. And they would 
all tell you, with Paul, that prayer means power, 
that prayer means victory, that prayer means peace 
and calm. They could not do without it. Paul 
could not do without it. The Lord Himself could not 
do without it. Away from the troubles and disap- 
pointments of earth he would retire into the lonely 
mountain to continue all night in prayer and com- 
munion with the Father. Both Paul and his Lord are 
continually exhorting us to this secret of peace and 
calm. Perhaps we can never get into the heights, 
but could we not do a little better than we are doing 
to win the habit of running to God like little children 
and telling Him things and being calmed by His 
presence? 

v 

Then we should be able to cheer and hearten other 
people as Paul did. From his communion with God 
he comes to that frightened crowd. "Cheer up! 
Be of good cheer! Take your food and strengthen 
your hearts, for I have assurance from God, whose I 
am and whom I serve, that all will be well." 

I call your attention to that picture of Paul cheering 
up those troubled people. " Cheer up ! Be of good 
cheer! ' That familiar phrase of Jesus should express 
the ministry of every Christian man and woman. It 
is your business, every one of you. You are not all 



THE SHIPWRECK 189 

called to the ministry of preaching, but you are all 
called to the ministry of cheering and heartening up 
your poor comrades in this troubled world. They 
want it badly; never, perhaps, more than in these 
sorrowful war days. God wants you to " hearten up ' 
people. If you have your own troubles keep them to 
yourself. Keep a bright face. Wag your tail even 
if things are hard with you. That itself is a help and 
it is pleasing to God. 

But you say Paul had a Divine assurance that all 
would be well. Well, have you not a similar assurance 
to give? Even in life's big troubles God has given to us, 
as to St. Paul, assurance that should cheer men's hearts. 
We can tell the man miserable about his past life of the 
forgiveness of sins. Even in the worst troubles — even 
to the mother whose boy has died in battle, we can 
tell of God's revelation, of the wondrous new adventure 
into which her young soldier has gone in the great Life 
of the Hereafter. Let us do our part, every one of us, 
to help this poor world to "be of good cheer." 

VI 

See how those troubled people respond to Paul's 
hopefulness. Sailors in times of danger are readiest 
of all men to believe in intervention from another 
world. They feel that this man is in touch with God. 
So they take their food and their nerves grow calmer 
to face, with new courage, what is still before them. 

They need all their courage for the last terrible 
night. At midnight there is a cry of " Land ahead! " 
They can hear the sound of the breakers and see the 
angry line of white, an awful sight when you cannot 
tell what is in front. So they sounded and found it 
twenty fathoms, and in a few moments more it is 



190 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

fifteen fathoms. They see the end is near. They 
dare not cast anchors from the bow lest the ship should 
swing round to the rocks. Desperately they cast out 
four anchors from the stern and long for the day. 
Whatever is before them they can do nothing more now. 

While they wait in the darkness Paul hears whis- 
perings and surreptitious movements. The hour of 
danger shews up dastards as well as heroes. The 
sailors are trying to lower a boat and escape. He 
whispers to the centurion, and in a moment the Roman 
sword has severed the rope, and the empty boat is gone. 

But there is a danger closer to him. As the cen- 
turion turns his officer salutes him, " Sir, shall we 
execute the prisoners lest they escape? ' It says much 
for the fine discipline of the soldiers that they should 
think of this terrible duty at such a crisis. But Julius 
thinks of Paul, to whom the whole ship's company owes 
so much. They could not afford to let Paul die. So 
he takes it on himself to forbid the execution. 

At last came the dawn. Right in front is a break 
in the rocks and a sandy cove. " Cut the anchor 
ropes. Let her drift ashore! ' But a cross current 
caught the ship and flung her broadside to the sea. 
And the waves leap on her, they fling her on the rocks, 
they tear her to pieces. In the wild confusion each 
man grasps what floating thing he can, and crushed 
and bleeding they were flung upon the shore. God 
was caring as he cares for all of us whether there be a 
Paul amongst us or not. 

Perhaps you will remind me that He often lets us drown. 
Even so. Even when He lets us be drowned and swept in to 
the Unseen, He is caring none the less. He is at the other 
side waiting. " And so, some on boards and some on 
broken pieces of the ship, they all escaped safe to land/' 



CHAPTER XIX 
In Chains 

Thus ends another crisis in the life of Paul. As 
we close the story one cannot help feeling, what a 
pity Luke was not with him all the time. What a 
life of exciting adventure we should hear of if we 
could have the whole stirring story thus graphically 
told instead of having to content ourselves with the 
bare passing mention of the days that Paul had in 
his memory before he met his biographer or when the 
biographer was away. 

I fear Paul must have been a very silent, unsatis- 
factory companion to the man who was writing the 
story of his life. In the quiet days on shipboard, in 
the four prison years when they were so much together, 
what things he could have told and how well Luke 
could have recorded them. I wonder if Luke ever 
saw that tantalizing reference to earlier days in the 
Corinthian letter: 

Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Three 
times was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, three times I 
suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep, 
in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils 
from my countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the 
city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among 
false brethren, in labour and travail, in watchings often, in hunger 
and thirst and fastings and cold and nakedness. 2 Cor. xi : 24. 

What a stirring narrative that would have made in 
the hands of the man who has told so graphically the 
story of the shipwreck. 

191 



192 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

But I suppose Paul did not care to talk about him- 
self, except when it was necessary in talking about his 
Lord. The mysterious Presence in which he lived 
dwarfed all else for him. I can picture the silent man 
looking out over the sea as memory played over those 
pictures in the panorama of his life, and tracing more 
and more the Guiding Hand, even where he had not 
seen it at the time. And I can imagine what an 
interesting vision will be our own life-pictures, by 
and bye, when we see them in memory from the life 
beyond and see God always in the midst, though we 
knew it not. 

n 

That shipwrecked company found themselves on 

the island which we call Malta. The place is almost 

certainly identified in what is now called St. Paul's 

Bay. The " barbarous people ,: shewed them no 

little kindness and Paul responded to their kindness 

by healing the sick and telling the people his joyous 

gospel of hope. We can conjecture what three months 

of such ministry must have meant to the Maltese. 

i 
in 

Three months later. 

Italy is in sight. The winter is over. On the 
shores of the lovely bay of Naples the land is putting 
on its spring mantle of green. In the fine harbour of 
Puteoli, the Liverpool of ancient Italy, sailors on the 
crowded wharves are cheering the entrance of the 
first Alexandrian grain ship of the season, the Castor 
and Pollux. She sails in proudly with topsails set, 
the privilege only of Alexandrian grain ships. She 
is carrying the bread of life for Italy — carrying also, 



IN CHAINS 193 

in a deeper sense, the Bread of Life for the world, for 
Paul and his shipwrecked company are on board. She 
has picked them up at Malta on her way. 

We have a picture in Roman history of another 
Alexandrian grain ship coming into this same harbour 
of Puteoli a few years earlier. Before her in the bay 
lay the royal barge carrying the dying Emperor 
Augustus. The sailors on the grain ship crowded the 
yards to cheer him and with garlands and incense 
they worshipped their emperor as a god. The religion 
of ancient Italy reached no higher than that, the wor- 
ship of a dying conqueror. 

The herald of a greater Conqueror was coming in 
now, but no one took any notice. The world had not 
grown better since Augustus' day. The Emperor 
was still the representative of the Divine. Roman 
society was rotten to the core. These lovely villas 
on the bay were homes of profligacy and lust, of 
unnatural vices and filthy abominations such as can- 
not be mentioned here. In one of these villas the 
man who was now emperor had killed his own mother. 
Just a year later when Paul was in Rome, this same 
emperor, the representative of the Divine, put his 
young wife to death and sent her head to his adul- 
terous mistress, Poppea, and divine honours were 
paid to the adulteress and her baby. Such was the 
condition of the world before Christianity came. And 
sometimes even now, both in war and peace times, the 
newspapers give us ugly reminders of what we might 
drop back to again if we let our religion slip. 

It was the most beautiful scene on earth that Paul 
looked on that morning from the deck of the Castor 
and Pollux. But, oh! it sorely needed Paul's mes- 
sage — it sorely needed Christ. 



194 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 



IV 

There were Christians to meet him even in Puteoli. 
Curious in what unexpected places these Christians 
seem turning up. We hear nothing of any mission- 
aries sent to Italy. But that seed of the Kingdom has 
a strange power of spreading. 

Julius, the centurion, has to hasten on his company 
on the great Appian road to Rome, crowded all day 
long with the varied traffic between Puteoli and the 
Imperial city. No doubt there were stirring sights on 
that march, but our historian is only interested in the 
dirty little town of Apii Forum, on the way, at the 
end of the canal, with its motley population of mule 
drivers and tavern keepers and drunken bargemen. 
For there Paul first meets the brethren from the city, 
come to meet him. Some he knows personally, others 
only by hearsay. We have a list of his friends to 
whom he sends salutations in his epistle to the Romans. 
It was pleasant to meet them all, but I fancy his heart 
stirring with a deeper pleasure as he sees amongst 
them the dear old faces of Aquila and Priscilla, those 
old comrades of his, laughing in the delight of meeting 
him again. And I read, "he thanked God and took 
courage." 



Now from the shoulder of the Alban hills he gets 
his first view of the Eternal City. He has seen many 
fine cities in his time, but nothing like this. Glorious, 
beautiful Rome, with all her historic associations, the 
incarnation of earthly power, the mistress of the world! 
His friends point out the Capitol and the Imperial 
Palace, the countless temples and the stately triumphal 



IN CHAINS 195 

arches commemorating the Empire's glories, the vast 
Circus Maximus on the left, where every year 10,000 
victims died, butchered to make a Roman holiday, 
in that old world without Christ. 

Now they are in the city. On through the narrow 
streets they march amid ever-increasing throngs of 
people, till the weary soldiers halt at last at the bar- 
racks of the Praetorian Guard and Julius, the centurion, 
surrenders his prisoners. And here begin the two or 
more long years of Paul's imprisonment in Rome. 

VI 

Like his time in Caesarea it seems to have been 
made as easy as possible for him. Julius, the cen- 
turion, would be sure to speak well of him to the 
officers of the guard. ' He is a splendid fellow, this 
Paul. We owe much to him on this journey. You 
can trust him to the uttermost. If you were even to 
parole him on his own simple promise you would be 
perfectly safe. Such men as he could not lie to you. 
Be as good to him as you can." 

And so instead of languishing in the Praetorian 
dungeons, he was allowed to live outside in his own hired 
lodging with the soldier that guarded him and with 
free leave to see and communicate with his friends. 

Evidently Paul's circumstances must have im- 
proved in his old age, since he, who had to work for 
his daily bread on his missionary tours, could now 
afford to live in his own hired dwelling and support 
himself. It is suggested that his father had died and 
his family inheritance had come to him, which seems a 
fairly probable conjecture. 

So I read " he abode two whole years in his own 
hired dwelling . . . teaching the things concerning 



196 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, no man for- 
bidding him. 5 ' 

VII 

These are the last words in the Acts of the Apostles. 
Here St. Luke's diary suddenly fails us. Why? 
Surely Luke did not mean to leave his hero there 
in prison with his trial pending. We know that 
Luke was with him. One feels sure that another 
book was intended to complete the biography. But 
we have not got it. Probably it was never finished. 
It may be that Luke lost his life in the terrible per- 
secution which caught his master later on and that 
the rest of his diary, for which the world would give 
so much to-day, was flung out unnoticed on a Roman 
rubbish heap. 

So we have to go on now without his guidance. 
We have the traditions of the early Church, but they 
do not carry us far. Fortunately we have the letters 
which the Apostle wrote during his imprisonment, 
and on these we have largely to depend for the rest 
of his story. 

From these letters we gather that even with all 
his privileges it was not a pleasant time. The letters 
refer frequently to his chains and his bonds. " The 
soldier that guarded him " may seem a small matter. 
But put yourself in his place. Think of the intolerable 
infliction of being chained all the time to another, a 
heathen soldier, often a brutal, beastly sort of man. 
We read that in the imprisonment of King Agrippa I 
in Rome, the Praetorian prefect was bribed to secure 
that the soldiers chained to him should be decent, 
good-tempered men. The guard would be relieved 
twice a day, but Paul had no relief — no privacy. 



IN CHAINS 197 

I read lately of a mediaeval tyrant chaining two men 
together for months as a distressing punishment. 

But Paul had to get used to it. And I think he 
did more, that he made his guards like him. You see 
the duty would not be very irksome to them for a 
few hours at a time. They could not help admiring 
the high character and kindly disposition of their 
prisoner. I can well believe that some of them grew 
attached to him, that little groups of them off duty 
would drop in and talk to him in the evenings. And 
Paul could not be long in intercourse with any man 
without helping him towards higher things. They 
often chatted to each other in barracks about their 
prisoner and his religion. And he is quite pleased at 
this. He tells the Philippians in a letter of this period 
* the things that have happened to me have turned 
out for the furtherance of the gospel, for my bonds in 
Christ have become manifest throughout the whole 
Praetorian guard." We gather that some of them 
became faithful disciples of Christ, for he writes in the 
same letter: s The Christian brethren that are here 
salute you, especially those that are of Caesar's house- 
hold," who would probably be the Praetorian life- 
guards. When one thinks how many soldiers would 
come in close touch with him in the continual change 
of the guard, during two years, one can imagine the 
difference it would make in that regiment. 

VIII 

One day, just after his arrival, he invited some of 
the chief Jews of the city to meet him, but the inter- 
view was very unsatisfactory. The Roman Chris- 
tians were, of course, his most frequent visitors. 



198 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

You can well believe that his presence in that prison 
room deepened the whole life of that Christian com- 
munity. Many a poor sinner would "come to him in 
his trouble. Many a poor presbyter would come to 
consult him and to talk about Jesus and go back to his 
congregation with his spirit stirred to preach to them 
the next Sunday as he had never preached before. 

But we learn from the epistles of this period that 
his sphere of action spread far beyond these. Even 
in his Roman prison there still lay upon him "' the 
care of all the churches." He still watched over his 
distant converts. And for this he had to keep around 
him his faithful band of friends who should travel to 
and fro and keep him in touch with them. 

He tells us that Luke was with him, and Tychicus 
his old companion in travel, and young Timothy his 
' beloved son in the faith," dearest and closest of 
them all, associated with him even in the writing of his 
epistles. And with especial interest we read that 
John Mark was with him. You remember young 
Mark who had deserted when Paul and Barnabas 
were on their first missionary journey and who was 
the cause of that unhappy separation between him 
and Barnabas. Paul was very angry with him then 
and refused to let him go with them any more. There- 
fore it is very interesting to find him helping him now 
and to see how much Paul had grown to care for him. 



CHAPTER XX 
Letters from Rome 

Visitors often came, too, from these far-off con- 
gregations. All roads led to Rome. Members of these 
congregations had often to come to the city on busi- 
ness and, of course, would come to see him and bring 
him affectionate messages and perhaps little com- 
forts for his prison life. And Paul would send back 
his greetings and sometimes send important letters. 

You remember Philippi, where he had been scourged 
so cruelly and where the Philippian jailer had been 
converted in the dungeon. One day an old friend 
from Philippi arrived. His name was Epaphroditus, 
and we judge from expressions about him that he was 
much beloved in the church. Probably he was one 
of their presbyters. For all that we know, he may 
have been the converted jailer. All the old friends, 
Lydia and the rest, sent their love and they also sent 
him a present. The old man was greatly touched. He 
loved his Philippian people better than any other 
and he thought much about them in the coming weeks, 
for Epaphroditus fell sick in Rome, " sick, nigh unto 
death," and the home people were anxious about him. 
They and Paul prayed earnestly to God. Prayer was 
a very real thing to Christians then. He must have 
been a close friend of Paul, judging from his relief 
at his recovery. " God had mercy on him," he writes, 
" and not on him but on me also lest I should have 
sorrow upon sorrow." 

199 



200 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

When Epaphroditus was convalescent, Paul wrote 
a letter to the Philippians which his friend should take 
home with him, the most beautiful and tender of all 
his epistles. And the most joyous. Out from the 
dreary prison room it came to the troubled Philippians 
and to despondent poor Christians all over the world 
since, telling of the inner gladness welling up in his 
heart. " I rejoice in the Lord." " Fulfil ye my joy." 
"Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say, rejoice!" 

All down the ages we have countless such instances 
of the happiness which religion gives in the midst of 
troubles. And it is worth thinking of in these troubled 
days. It is hard to be cheery with this black war-cloud 
resting on us. But God is near and God is caring, and 
it is wholesome for us to see what religion can do for 
men who are really living close to their Lord. 

ii 

When you read this epistle put it in its right setting. 
Paul, writing or dictating it to Timothy, in his prison 
room with a soldier chained to him, and his sick friend 
waiting to carry the letter home. Let us glance over 
some of the little papyrus sheets as Timothy lays them 
down: 

I thank my God upon all my remembrance of you, always 
making my supplication with joy for your fellowship in further- 
ance of the gospel from the first day until now. . . . For God is 
my witness how I long after you all in the tender mercies of Christ 
Jesus. And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more 
and more . . . that ye may approve the things that are excellent, 
that ye may be sincere and void of offence unto the day of Christ, 
being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are through 
Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. 

Do not be troubled about me. The things which have hap- 
pened to me have fallen out unto the furtherance of the gospel 



LETTERS FROM ROME . 201 

through the whole Praetorian guard and through the brethren 
here who have grown abundantly bold to speak the word of God 
without fear. 

And do not trouble about the result of my trial. I think I 
shall be acquitted, but what matter so that Christ be magnified 
in me whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, 
to die is gain. Either alternative is good. I hardly know which 
I should choose. To depart and be with Christ would be better 
for me, to abide in the flesh would be better for you. And 1 
believe I shall abide and meet you again. Only let your life be 
worthy of the gospel of Christ that whether I come to you or not 
I may know that ye stand fast in the Lord. 

Now be careful about those little disagreements among you. 

If there is any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of love, 
if any fellowship of the Spirit, fulfil ye my joy having the same 
love, doing nothing through strife or vainglory but in lowliness 
of mind, each counting other better than himself, not looking each 
to his own things but each also to the things of others. Have 
this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus. 

Even if I am to be offered as a sacrifice, I joy and rejoice with 
you all as you do with me. 

I hope to send Timothy shortly to you that I may be of good 
comfort when I know your state. For ye know that as a child 
with his father he has served with me in the furtherance of the 
gospel. But I trust in the Lord that I myself also shall come 
to you shortly. 

I send back Epaphroditus, your friend and your minister to 
my need. He has been very sick, nigh unto death, but God had 
mercy on him and on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon 
sorrow. Receive him in the Lord with all joy and hold such men 
in honour always. 

Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice. Whatever 
happens rejoice in the Lord. I count all things but loss for the 
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. . . . One 
thing I do, forgetting the things that are behind and stretching 
forward to the things that are before, I press toward the mark 
for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 

Finally, brethren, think high thoughts. Whatsoever things 
are true, whatsoever things are honourable, whatsoever things 



202 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are honour- 
able and lovely and of good report, think on these things. 

I am greatly pleased at your kind thought of me in sending 
your gift. Not that I speak in respect of want, for I have learned 
in whatsoever state I am therein to be content. But now I have 
all things and abound having received from Epaphroditus this 
gift that came from you. And my God shall supply all your 
need according to his riches in Christ Jesus. Give my love to all 
the friends. The brethren here send their greetings to you, es- 
pecially those that are of Caesar's household. The grace of the 
Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. 

Ill 

Amongst the many visitors to Paul in his prison 
room came one day a young runaway slave, named 
Onesimus. He had run away from his master at 
Colossae and we suspect, from a reference in Paul's 
epistle later, had stolen money from him. He had 
made for the great city to hide himself and to have a 
good time. A big city is the safest of all hiding places. 
But one day some one brought him to see Paul. Or, 
perhaps, the poor, hunted lad remembered Paul as a 
visitor in old days at his master's house. For his master, 
Philemon, was one of Paul's old converts. He was a 
member of the Colossian church and he and his good 
wife, Apphia, were close friends of the apostle, the 
sort of friends to whom you can write and offer your- 
self for a visit without waiting for an invitation. 
" You might get a room ready for me," Paul writes to 
him, "as I hope, through God's blessing, to come soon 
and visit you." It is only to very intimate friends 
that you can write like that. 

Paul's heart warmed to the young slave. Young 
men had always a special attraction for him, and this 
young scamp must have had something very winning 
about him in spite of his wickedness. For there grew 



LETTERS FROM ROME 203 

a very close friendship between them. And Onesimus 
became penitent and became a disciple of Christ. 

IV 

It is sometimes an awkward thing to become a 
Christian. For you feel impelled to do the right thing, 
which is so often a very unpleasant thing. The 
religion which Paul taught was very practical. Onesi- 
mus must not merely tell God that he is sorry, he must 
go back to his master and confess and take his punish- 
ment and make what restitution he can. 

Some of us think it all right if we just tell God 
that we are sorry. That is a very easy thing to do, 
for we feel that God knows it already. Confession 
does not bring any awkward consequences. I once 
asked a small boy whether he had confessed to God a 
certain sin. " Yes," he said. And then he made me 
smile as he added, " You see, I don't mind telling God 
because He won't tell anybody." Have not you 
often felt like that? Repentance means more than 
that. It means earnest resolve for the future, also 
restitution, where possible, and willingness to take the 
unpleasant consequences. That was what Paul taught 
his convert. " You must go back, my lad, and do the 
right, though it will be very hard for you to go and 
very hard for me to part with you. But I will write a 
note to my old friend to take with you." 

So he sends back Onesimus with this note in his 
pocket and, fortunately, Philemon kept the note and 
I suppose he gave it afterwards to the Colossian church 
to preserve with Paul's epistles. 

It is a very interesting little page of the Bible. No 
formal teaching or disquisition on doctrines, but just 
a little impromptu letter dashed off at the moment. 



204 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

But it gives a glimpse into the heart of the writer, 
better than some more formal epistles. And it is a 
valuable illustration of the way in which Christianity 
deals with social problems, slavery and war and such 
like. 

Slavery was an unutterably cruel institution. The 
man, the woman, the young girl, the child belonged to 
the master to do what he liked with. This very year 
of Paul's arrival in Rome the prefect of the city was 
killed by the slave lover of one of his slave girls. 
Probably he deserved killing. In revenge for it the 
whole body of his 400 slaves, men, women and chil- 
dren, were put to death. How did Christianity deal 
with slavery? Not by stirring up rebellion or rousing 
slaves to insurrection, but by gradually leavening 
society with the spirit of that religion which recog- 
nized all as brethren and as equal in the sight of the 
Father of us all. " Onesimus," writes Paul to the 
master of this young slave, " Onesimus is my friend 
and a disciple of your Lord and mine. Receive him 
as a brother." " Masters," he writes in the Ephe- 
sian epistle, "be good to your slaves, for their master 
and yours is in Heaven and there is no respect of per- 
sons with him." That is the spirit of the religion of 
Jesus and when it grew sufficiently strong in the world, 
slavery was swept away forever. 

That too is how wars will be swept away. That 
is God's method. Not by paralyzing the aggressor 
or smiting him with fire from heaven, but by 
gradually permeating life with the religion which 
makes all men brothers. God's plan is slow, but it is 
sure, like the incoming of the tide. It is slow because 
its appeal is to individual wills, and everyone who 
yields his life to it is hastening that coming day when 



LETTERS FROM ROME 205 

men will look back on war with the shame with which 
they now look back on slavery. 



Here is the letter which Onesimus brought to his 
master and from which you can gather the whole of his 
story : 

Paul a prisoner of Jesus Christ and Timothy our brother, to 
Philemon our beloved and to Apphia our sister and to Archippus 
and the church in thy house. ... I thank my God always 
making mention of you in my prayers. For I had much joy and 
comfort in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been 
refreshed through you, my brother. 

Wherefore, though I might enjoin you to do what is fitting, 
yet for love's sake I rather beseech you being such a one as Paul 
the aged and now a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I beseech you for 
my child Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds. . . . 
whom I send back to you though I fain would have kept him with 
me that in your behalf he might minister to me in the bonds of 
the gospel, but without your mind I would do nothing that your 
goodness should not be of necessity but of free will. 

For perhaps he was parted from you for a season that you 
might have him for ever, no longer as a bondservant but as a brother 
beloved. ... If then you count me as a partner, receive him 
as myself. If he has wronged you or owes you anything put it 
down to my account. I, Paul, write with my own hand I will 
repay it. Though indeed you owe to me even your own soul. 
. . . Having confidence in your obedience I write, knowing that 
you will do even beyond what I say. 

But withal prepare me also a lodging, for I hope through 
your prayers I shall be granted to come to you. 

Epaphras, my fellow-prisoner in Christ Jesus, salutes you, 
and so do Mark and Aristarchus and Demas and Luke, my fellow- 
workers. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. 



XXI 

Letters from Rome — Continued 

But before Onesimus started for Colossae there 
was occasion for another letter to be sent to the church 
in his home town. There had arrived in Rome an- 
other Colossian, either the founder or an important 
presbyter of the Colossian church. His name was 
Epaphras. He consulted with Paul about some diffi- 
culties that had arisen. It seems that a travelling 
preacher had come teaching Christianity, but a Chris- 
tianity mixed up with some queer notions of Rab- 
binical theology and Greek philosophy — about the 
worship of angels, and the necessity of an extremely 
ascetic life, and other errors. The danger was that 
it looked so like Christianity. Just as if a Christian 
Science teacher, for example, should preach his Chris- 
tianity to us. 

So Paul decided to write an epistle to the Colossians 
and send it by Tychicus, one of his associates, who 
should also take charge of young Onesimus on his 
way home. From the letter it is evident that Paul 
did not know the Colossians personally, and perhaps 
was not very clear about the false teaching either. He 
had to go on what Epaphras told him. 

I omit the synopsis of this Colossian letter, as 
I want to keep your attention fresh for the following 
epistle where some of its best thoughts are even bet- 
ter expressed. Two sentences, however, I quote with 
a special purpose. "All my affairs shall Tychicus 

206 



LETTERS FROM ROME— (Continued) 207 

make known unto you — I send him to you, together 
with Onesimus, the faithful and beloved brother, 
who is one of yourselves. " " Give my salutations to 
the brethren in Laodicea and when this epistle has 
been read among you, cause that it also be read in the 
church of the Laodiceans and ye also read the epistle 
that I am sending to Laodicea." 

II 

So the two messengers start for Colossae, Tychicus 
to present his epistle to the church, Onesimus to face 
the master whom he had wronged, carrying with him 
his precious letter of apology. Here we regretfully 
bid Onesimus farewell. We should like to know how 
he turned out afterwards, for Paul had a great belief 
in the lad. History tells of a bishop of Berea named 
Onesimus, and some think that he was the former 
slave. It is only a conjecture. 

But Tychicus had another letter to carry and 
thereby hangs a tale. We have seen that Paul speaks 
of an epistle to the Laodiceans which he was sending 
at the same time. Now we have in the Bible no 
epistle with that title, wherefore many have concluded 
that it is lost. But we have an extremely important 
one called the Epistle to the Ephesians. It is rather 
puzzling, since it has none of the personal references 
which we should expect in a letter to people whom 
he knew so well for three years and amongst whom he 
had such an exciting time. It might have been 
written to any church. The personal element is quite 
absent. Some passages look as if he had only a 
hearsay knowledge of the people. One is inclined to 
doubt if it was really addressed to the Ephesians. 

In addition to this we have statements from sev- 



208 ' TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

eral ancient fathers of the Church that the manu- 
scripts of this epistle which they had, omitted the 
word Ephesus in the inscription. The two oldest 
copies in existence to-day bear this out. One is in 
Petrograd and one is in the Vatican library at Rome. 
They have no title. And finally we have a testi- 
mony that, in some places £t least, it was known as 
the Epistle to the Laodiceans. Yet there must be 
some good reason for the fact that the title " Ephe- 
sians " always clung to it in church tradition. 

in 

The question is not worth discussing further. I 
believe it was a general Pastoral letter for Ephesus 
and Laodicea and other churches — if so, it was the 
greatest Pastoral ever written. I call your attention 
now to the Epistle to the Ephesians. It is Paul's last 
and noblest letter to the Gentile churches. Here he is 
at his best and greatest. He passes away and rises 
far above all the (necessary) lower controversies of 
other epistles about Jews and Gentiles and ceremonial 
rites and systems of theology. He rises into the 
sublime and the infinite. His imagination is peopled 
with things in the heavenly places, his fancy is rapt 
into visions of God before the world was. To many 
devout students this epistle represents the high- 
water mark of Paul's inspired thought after his four 
prison years of contemplation of the stupendous 
mystery of God's dealings with man. 

IV 

First comes the tremendous thought of God's 
Divine purpose from the beginning before anything 
was made that was made. This church of Christ 



LETTERS FROM ROME— (Continued) 209 

he says, is no accident, no afterthought. It was the 
eternal purpose of God's love before the foundation of 
the world that the eternal Christ should save humanity, 
that evil should be swept out of the Universe forever, 
that the poor children should be gathered into the arms 
of the Father, that God should be all in all. 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, 
as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, 
having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ, 
according to the good pleasure of his grace wherein he hath made 
us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through 
his blood even the forgiveness of sins. . . . that in the dispen- 
sation of the fulness of times he might gather unto one all things 
in Christ, according to his purpose who worketh all things after 
the counsel of his own will. 

"I want you to know/' he says, "this wondrous plan of God's 
everlasting purpose of love. "I pray that the God and Father 
of Our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of glory, may give unto you 
the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; 
the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may 
know the hope of his calling and the riches and glory of this in- 
heritance and the exceeding greatness of his power toward us 
who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which 
he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set 
him at his own right hand far above all principality and power 
and might and dominion and hath put all things under his feet 
and gave him to be head of all things to the Church which is his 
body." 

See how this plan of God is working out. 

Even you Gentiles come into this loving purpose who were 
aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, having no hope and 
without God in the world. Now you who were far off are made 
nigh by the blood of Christ. Now ye are no more strangers and 
foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the house- 
hold of God built upon the foundations of the apostles and proph- 
ets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone. 

God has allowed even me, the poor prisoner of Jesus Christ, 
to understand and teach this mystery which in other ages was 
not made known to the sons of men. To me who am the least 
of all saints was this grace given that I should preach among the 



210 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to make men see 
this mystery which from the beginning hath been hid in God 
. . . according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ 
Jesus our Lord. For this cause I bow my knees to the Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he would grant you that ye being 
rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend this 
mystery, that ye may be able to comprehend with all saints what 
is the breadth and length and depth and height of that love of 
Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all 
the fulness of God. 



This is a brief and very imperfect resume of the 
first half of the epistle. Even if there were time 
and if I understood him better, still it is not easy to 
express simply Paul's thought in this passage. For 
his thoughts are deep. And his style is difficult. One 
of his sentences here is like a German sentence, twelve 
verses long. But perhaps I have given you at least 
some little glimpse of the awe and wonder and adoring 
gratitude with which he contemplates this mystery 
of God's eternal purpose of love to men, before the 
time when " in the beginning God created the heavens 
and the earth." 

Now, in the beginning of the fourth chapter he 
turns straight to the practical conclusion from all this, 
with the word " therefore." Because of God's love 
and God's care and God's thought for you from the 
eternities. 

" Therefore I, Paul, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to 
walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called/' That is 
the keynote of his appeal. 

Therefore, keep unbroken the unity of the Church, one Lord, 
one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above 
all and through all, and in you all. 

Therefore walk no longer as other Gentiles walk in the vanity 
of their mind. Put off the old man which waxeth corrupt and 
put on the new man which after God hath been created in right- 
eousness and true holiness. 



LETTERS FROM ROME— (Continued) 211 

Therefore, putting away falsehood, speak every man truth 
with his neighbours. Let him that stole steal no more. Let 
no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. Let all 
bitterness and wrath and anger be put away from you and be ye 
kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even 
as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. 

Therefore be ye imitators of God as dear children and walk 
in love, even as Christ also loved you and gave himself for you. 

Ye were once darkness bu : are now light in the Lord. Walk 
as children of the light and have no fellowship with the unfruitful 
works of darkness. 

Keep your family life as God would have it. Wives be sub- 
ject to your husbands. Husbands love your wives even as Christ 
loved the Church. Children obey your parents in the Lord. 
Servants be obedient to your masters not with eye service as men- 
pleasers but as servants of Christ, doing your service as to the 
Lord not unto men. And ye masters, do the same by them, 
knowing that both their Master and yours is in Heaven and there 
is no respect of persons with him. 

Finally be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 
Put on the whole armour of God that ye may be able to stand in 
the evil day. 

And continue in supplication for all Christians and for me 
that utterance may be given to me to make known with boldness 
this mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in a chain. 

Peace be to the brethren and love with faith from God the 
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all them that 
love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. 

VI 

These are the four Epistles of the Captivity, 
Philippians, Colossians, Ephesians, Philemon, some 
of the results of Paul's two years in that prison room. 
Which suggests a lesson for us. To many of Paul's 
friends it must have seemed such a waste that God 
should leave his great apostle cooped up in confinement 
for two years when he might have been preaching 
Christ and building up in the Imperial City the cen- 
tral church of Christendom. 



5112 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

We, looking back on the results to-day can hardly 
feel like that. Perhaps it was worth while in order 
that Christ's gospel should get a hold in the Roman 
army who went to all parts of the world, who prob- 
ably had much to do with first bringing that gospel to 
Britain. Surely it was worth while to give Paul time 
to think. Surely these four Epistles of the Captivity 
were of more value to the Church than would be two 
years' preaching in Rome. So St. John was exiled to 
lonely Patmos and wrote the Book of the Revelations. 
So Bunyan, kept twelve years in Bedford Jail, wrote 
his Pilgrim's Progress. So Luther, shut up in the 
Wartzburg, translated the New Testament for the 
Germans. (One wishes they had made better use of it.) 

So, too, to some of ourselves it has seemed waste 
that we have been disappointed of certain promotions, 
that we have been relegated to an obscure position or 
set aside by ill health from active work. It is not 
easy, but it is wise to say at such times, Let me take 
it as God's will. Let me culture my soul and help my 
neighbours and make happiness around me and leave 
the results with God. That was what Paul did and 
God took care of the results. God was guiding. God 
was loving. God was caring. Storm and shipwreck, 
soldier and fetter, Caesarea and Rome, all worked out 
right for Paul in the end. These things that hap- 
pened to me, he writes, have turned out all right for 
the furtherance of the Gospel. 

Learn the lesson. Do not fret at the limitations 
and disabilities of your life. Rest in the Lord. If 
you are trying to live for Him, wherever you are placed, 
all things will work together for good to achieve God's 
ideal in you, to make you what in your best moments 
you long to become* 



CHAPTER XXII 

The Passing of Paul 

After these weary years of the law's delay, at 
length, in the spring of a.d. 63, the trial came on. 
He stood at last before Nero's Court of Appeal. 
As he had anticipated in his letters the verdict was 
favourable. He was set free. Possibly the Jews had 
grown tired of pursuing him. The reports of Festus 
and Agrippa and the Chief Captain Lysias were in 
his favour. The kindly centurion, Julius, would help 
him all he could. The officers of the guard would say 
their good word for him. And in any case, Roman 
judges would not be much concerned about a charge 
which turned largely on mere Jewish superstitions. 
Therefore, though his biographer does not tell the 
story, we may accept the uncontradicted belief of 
the early Church, that he was set free from his chains 
and went out again in his closing days to finish the 
great work to which the Lord had called him that 
day long ago on the Damascus road. 

11 

He had a narrower escape than he knew. If his 
trial had been delayed a little longer nothing, humanly 
speaking, could have saved him. 

For in the July of the next year (a.d. 64), came the 
historic Great Fire of Rome, blazing for six days and 
nights and nearly destroying the city. And, just as 
in the Great Fire of London the mob charged the 

213 



214 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

crime on the Roman Catholics, so now they charged 
it on the inoffensive Christians. Those who knew 
best had their dark suspicions of the half insane 
emperor, Nero, and he, for his own sake, was only too 
glad to encourage the slander against the Christian 
community. So the year after Paul's trial a Chris- 
tian was about as safe in Rome as a mad dog. A 
fierce persecution arose. They were tortured and 
crucified. That devilish emperor covered living men 
and women with tar and burned them as torches to 
illuminate the gardens. The Roman historian Tac- 
itus tells us that a great number of Christians perished. 

However, that was a year ahead, and meantime 
Paul was far away from Rome closing up his life work. 
Now, more than ever, we miss that lost notebook of 
St. Luke. For, surely it had an interesting story of 
the old man's last years. Outside his own letters 
we have only vague tradition to guide us. But, fortu- 
nately for us, his three last letters remain, the 
Pastoral Epistles, as they are called, to Timothy and 
Titus. No one can read them without seeing that 
they belong to this period. 

Beyond the hints in these letters we cannot trace 
his movements. We may fairly suppose that he fol- 
lowed his intention expressed in his recent letter to 
Philemon, that he visited Colossae and stayed with 
Philemon and met young Onesimus again, that he 
made a great final visitation of the churches which he 
had founded and confirmed their organization for the 
years when he should be gone. There is some evidence 
that he sailed by the Marseilles shipping line and 
founded Christian churches as far west as Spain. But 
we know very little about these closing years of his 



THE PASSING OF PAUL 215 

life. The whole picture is vague and shadowy want- 
ing the lost notebook of St. Luke. 

in 

Somewhere in these journeyings he wrote his First 
Epistle to Timothy, giving directions about the order 
and government of the church, the ordaining of clergy 
and the rules of life which Timothy must prescribe 
to be observed by Christian people. 

The time had come for Paul as well as the other 
apostles to think of laying down their work and ap- 
pointing successors and leaving broad rules for the 
guidance of the church when they should have gone 
back to their Master. Paul was now a worn-out man 
in broken health, approaching his seventieth year. 
The impetuous soul was wearing through the frail, 
delicate little body. He had had a very hard life. 
He had done stupendous work. He had suffered 
greatly in body and mind. He was still cordially 
hated by a good many people. He had pressing 
anxieties, growing heavier as he grew older, " the care 
of all the churches." He was tired out. It must have 
been a relief to pass on his work to others. It must 
have been with a restful feeling that he wrote a little 
later " The time of my departure is at hand." 

In this preparation for the future he must divest 
himself of friends who are needed for important 
positions in the church. He must part from his 
life companion, Timothy, just when his old age most 
needed him. It was for both of them a sore parting. 
" I remember your tears," he writes to Timothy a 
year later. 

He invested Timothy with authority over the 
church in Ephesus and the regions around, and soon 



£16 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

afterwards he similarly appointed Titus to Crete. 
They were to ordain clergy to rule the Church, to do 
what we now call and what the Church for eighteen 
hundred years has called, the work of a bishop. They 
were young for such positions. They would require 
advice and directions. They might, perhaps, need 
Paul's letters as credentials. So a few months after 
parting with him he wrote from Macedonia his First 
Epistle to Timothy: 

IV 

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, unto Timothy my true child 
in the faith, grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and 
Our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . This charge I commend to thee my 
son Timothy, that thou fight the good fight holding faith and a 
good conscience, which some having thrust from them, have made 
shipwreck of the faith, of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, 
whom I have delivered unto Satan that they may learn not to 
blaspheme. 

I direct you how to act in the house of God the Church of the 
living God. 

I exhort therefore first of all that supplications, prayers, inter- 
cessions be made for all men — I direct how you are to enjoin 
men to behave in the church. I direct how women are to act. 

Faithful is the saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop 
he desireth a good work. (The word " bishop " here is misleading 
to us. The Greek word episcopos means simply an overseer, 
one who presides. While the Apostle lived it was used of pres- 
byters who were overseers over congregations. But as the Apostles 
began to pass away, the name became restricted to the Chief 
Overseers, the successors of the Apostles who were invested by 
them with authority to ordain and rule. So the name Bishop 
and the office continue ever since. But here the name is applied 
to the presbyters ordained by Timothy as overseers of congre- 
gations.) 

The Apostle is directing him what sort of man to ordain — 
he must be blameless, the husband of one wife, not given to much 
wine, ruling his household well and having a good reputation 
outside. "Lay hands suddenly on no man. Be careful whom 
you ordain. And when you have ordained them, see that they 
are properly supported, for the labourer is worthy of his hire. 
Likewise the deacons must be men of high character. ,, 



THE PASSING OF PAUL 217 

Thus and thus must you behave toward the widows on the 
poor fund — towards the younger women, etc. Thus I direct with 
regard to the rich, to slaves, to false teachers. So he lays down 
his direction to the young bishop for his guidance in the church. 

Then for his personal life. Keep thyself pure. Watch against 
the love of money. O man of God, flee from these things — follow 
after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. 
Fight the good fight of faith. I charge thee in the sight of God 
and of Christ Jesus that thou keep the commandment without 
spot until the appearing of Our Lord Jesus Christ. O Timothy, 
guard that which is committed unto thy trust. Peace be with you. 

So ends the first epistle to Timothy. 



Soon afterwards Paul visited the churches of Crete 
with Titus. He could not stay long enough to do all 
that was needful in ordaining clergy and checking false 
teachers. So he had to leave Titus there in the same 
position and authority as Timothy at Ephesus. Titus 
was young for a bishop and it would seem that his 
authority was questioned. So, later on, it was nec- 
essary to write to him also. It is not necessary here 
to comment on the epistle to Titus, as it is, in sub- 
stance, very like that to Timothy. 

VI 

So Paul continued his tour from town to town, from 
church to church, setting things in order, bidding them 
good-bye, leaving them " sorrowing for the words 
which he had said that they should see his face no 
more." 

Every month danger drew nearer. The rage 
against Christians had spread from Rome to the 
Provinces and such a prominent leader could not be 
safe for long. He would have to steal in and out of 
towns secretly, trusting the loyalty of the church people 
not to betray him. He had no lack of enemies, Jews 



218 TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

and Gentiles. At last they got him. Some informer 
laid a charge against him. " Alexander, the copper- 
smith, shewed against me much evil by his accusation," * 
he writes before his death. Perhaps it was he. We 
do not know and it does not matter. He could not 
have escaped anyway. So they arrested him, perhaps 
at Nicopolis, where he meant to spend the winter, 
perhaps at Troas in the house of Carpus, where, in 
the hurry of departure, he left his old travelling cloak 
and his books and parchments, of which we shall hear 
again. It seems probable that to escape an unfair 
trial in the Provinces he again used his privilege of 
appealing to Caesar. At any rate he was taken to 
Rome again to be tried. 

VII 

It was a lonely journey to Rome this time — not like 
the last. One and another of his friends either had 
been sent on missions or else had deserted him in his 
trouble. Luke remained with him. 

And when he got to Rome there was no group of 
friends to meet him as before. It was as much as their 
lives were worth to be seen with him now. Dear old 
Aquila and Priscilla had fled to Ephesus. Most of the 
others had escaped somewhere from Rome. Demas for- 
sook him. The men of Asia Minor, when they came to 
Rome on business, no longer called to see him. " They 
have all turned away from me," he says. One brave 
friend from Ephesus stands out in fine contrast. 
We gather that he was dead when Paul wrote about 
him. " The Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesi- 
phorus, he was not ashamed of my chains but when he 
was in Rome he sought me diligently and found me. 
May the Lord grant him mercy in the Great Day." 
1 The Greek verb here expresses this thought. 



THE PASSING OF PAUL 219 

We gather, too, that his imprisonment this time was 
very strict. No lodging in his own hired apartment as 
before, but shut up close within prison walls. We hear 
nothing of preaching or conversing with friends. We 
hear no word of hope that he might some day be free 
and visit old friends again. He is a doomed man, no 
prospect but death. " The time of my departure is 
come." 

VIII 

We get one closing glimpse of him that goes to our 
heart in the second epistle to Timothy, so far as we 
know, his very last written words. 

In the great crises of life there is usually one friend 
whom above all others a man specially wants near him. 
With Paul it was Timothy. We remember how deeply 
he was attached to him. Ever since the day when he 
first met the lad in Lycaonia, living with his mother 
and grandmother on the Lystra road * he had made 
him his closest friend. He was associated with him in 
his epistles, entrusted with important missions, taking 
the troublesome details of work off his hands in his 
care for all the churches. The childless old man 
loved him as a son and he writes to the Philippians 
" You know that as a son with his father he has been 
to me. 

Now, in the lonely prison facing death, he wants 
to see Timothy again that he might give him final 
directions and advice and that his soul might bless 
him before he died. 

Not that we are to imagine him sad and dispirited, 
thinking sentimentally of himself and his loneliness. 
Not a bit of it. Paul is not of that kind. The letter 
is full of hope and encouragement and wise advice for 

1 See page 72. 



no TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

the guidance of the church in case Timothy should 
not arrive in time. But he greatly wants him to 
arrive in time. " I am longing to see you. If you 
would see me alive come soon. Do your diligence to 
come to me quickly — before the winter, if you can — 
before the end." 

IX 

Second Epistle to Timothy. 

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God to Timothy 
my beloved son, grace, mercy and peace from God our Father 
and Christ Jesus our Lord. 

I thank God whenever I make mention of you, as I do continually 
in my prayers, night and day. I am longing to see you that I 
may be filled with joy remembering your tears when you parted 
from me. I remember your unfeigned faith which dwelt first in 
your grandmother, Lois, and in your mother, Eunice, and I am 
persuaded also in you. Wherefore stir up the gift of God which 
is in you through the laying on of my hands. 

Be not ashamed of the testimony of our Lord nor of me, his 
prisoner. ... I am not ashamed for I know him whom I have 
believed and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I 
have committed to him against that day. Hold fast what you have 
heard from me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That 
goodly treasure committed to your charge, guard through the 
Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us. 

You know already that all those of Asia have deserted me. May 
the Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, for he was not 
ashamed of my chain, but when he was in Rome he sought me 
diligently and found me. May the Lord grant him to find mercy 
in the Great Day. 

Thou, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace which is in Christ 
Jesus. And the things which you have heard from me amongst 
many witnesses, the same commit to faithful men who shall be 
able to teach others also. . . . 

Abide in the things which you have learned and been assured 
of, knowing of whom you have learned them and that from a child 
you have known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make you 
wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Every 
scripture given by inspiration of God is profitable for teaching, for 
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the 
man of God may be furnished completely unto every good work. 



THE PASSING OF PAUL m 

I charge thee in the sight of God and of Jesus Christ, who shall 
judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom, 
preach the word, be instant in season and out of season, reprove, 
rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and teaching. . . . 

Accomplish your ministry fully. For I am now ready to be 
offered up and the time of my departure is come. I have fought 
the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. 
Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which 
the Lord will give me in that day. 

Do your diligence to come to me shortly. Demas has forsaken 
me, Crescens and Titus I have sent on missions. Only Luke 
remains with me now. Bring Mark with you. Bring with you 
my cloak which I left with Carpus at Troas and the books, espe- 
cially the parchments. Do your diligence to come to me before 
winter. The Lord be with thy spirit. Grace be with you. 



That is our last glimpse of Paul. Whether he 
ever got that old cloak and parchments, whether 
Timothy got to him in time we cannot tell. We hope 
for Paul's sake that it was so. They would have but 
a short time together anyway. For the end was now 
very close. 

What a picture it would make, that final trial. The 
best man and the worst man in the world at the time 
facing each other. The Right and the Wrong meeting. 
And the Right was in the fetters and the Wrong was 
on the throne. It is often so in this topsy-turvy world. 
So often that, even apart from Revelation, men are 
constrained to believe in a great Setting-Right some 
day. 

But even in this world things are not so topsy- 
turvy as they seem. For even here, in the long run 
Right wins. Nay, even in the moment of seeming 
defeat Right wins. Who doubts which was happier 
that day — the brave old fighter who had lived his life 
for God and who, at its close, possessed of earthly 



'*&£ TO PRISON AND TO DEATH 

goods just an old cloak and a few parchments, or the 
proud, wicked emperor who had lived his life for 
self, who had exhausted life's enjoyments and dissi- 
pations and had boundless wealth and power at his 
disposal. 

The trial was soon over. There was no advocate, 
no defender, no man stood by him. It mattered little. 
If Christians were accused of destroying Rome and if 
Paul was accused of being the Christian leader, what 
defence would avail in the state of public feeling at the 
time? The vote was for death. The prisoner was to 
be beheaded. Probably it was only his Roman citizen- 
ship that saved him from worse. 

We have no details. There is a persistent tradition 
that, like his Master, he " suffered without the gate " 
at the Pyramid of Cestius on the Harbour Road. 

We can easily picture the scene. The hot, white 
road, the yelling mob, the small, quiet old man walk- 
ing silently amid the guards with the light of another 
world in his eyes. 

One hopes that they were men of the old Praetorian 
Guard who knew him and would shield him from the 
insults of that howling mob. Then the halt — the 
headsman's block — a broad sword flashing in the sun- 
light — and an old white head lying dishonoured on the 
ground. Not even the band of Christians, as in 
Stephen's day, " to make much lamentation over him." 

The further scene it is not for us to paint when those 
eyes that closed thus in the darkness of death opened 
on ' a light that never was on sea or land ' and the poor 
humble soul who felt himself " the chief of sinners n 
was again with the Jesus of the Damascus road to give 
up the commission which he had received that day. 



THE PASSING OP PAUL 223 

Doubtless, there were more glorious commissions for 
him now. 

"We doubt not that for one so true 
God will have other nobler work to do " 

in the great adventure of the Hereafter. One day we 
shall know of that new adventure too. But not now. 
The curtain has fallen on Paul's earthly life. Suffice it 
that he has won his heart's desire " to depart and be 
with Christ which is far better." 



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